Losing to Win?

The idea of losing to win sounds like really bad advice does it not? In America, we are trained at an early age to go for the gusto. Winning, as someone once said, is everything. We are told nobody remembers losers or those who came in second place. “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and “climb that corporate ladder” are two of the many mantras we hear proclaimed across our land. I believe behind most of this philosophy is pride and ego.

Jesus taught something different; something radically different for His disciples and those desiring to follow in His footsteps. “When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34,35 NKJV emphasis mine).

First, notice Jesus called the people and His disciples together when He gave this teaching. Second, Jesus is telling us there is a great cost in following Him. Third, we must lose to win. We must die to this world and its’ temptations. We must die to our pride and ego. We must put God and His will first in our lives. We must choose God over our careers, our lives, our hobbies, and even our families. We must lose ourselves in serving God.

The Christians of the first century did just that. They sometimes lost their jobs, homes, families, and their lives for simply being a Christian and refusing to deny Jesus. No one knew who might be next when the persecutions came. How were these early Christians able to do this? They were grounded in their faith and were certain where their future home would be.

Paul put it this way, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13,14 NKJV). May we go and do likewise.

Friends, let us lose ourselves in Christ, so we may truly win in this life and the one to come.

Stay true to the Word,

Brother Travis