My Goal: To Lose My Life!

Luke 9:21-36

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?  Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  Luke 23-26

Jesus teaches us many things by using parables, but this my friend is no parable.  This is it, put straight out there as plain as day.  This is what we are to do, not what we may want to do or choose to do, but what we must do---there is no way around this scripture.  It is the truth spoken plainly to God’s children.  As I look deeply into these words from my Savior I see many things that contradict what the world tries to teach me.  Deny myself, carry my own cross, follow someone else, loose my life, don’t try to gain the whole world, and don’t be ashamed of following Jesus.  I have to be honest, I do desire to be a disciple of Christ, I want to be different from the world, I want to lose my life and serve Him completely, but I don’t always do these things.  It’s not that I don’t want to, but I let the busyness of my life deter me away from what God has called me to do.  You see, I have no doubt that Satan knows exactly how dedicated my heart is to serving Jesus, he knows how much I desire to know Christ more and he knows that the same old tricks and temptations do not sway me any longer, so he uses something else.  Time.  The more time I spend being busy with stuff, the less time I have for Jesus, and I will have to be honest again and admit that it is hard to stop the busyness; it will jump on me before I realize it and I will find myself sunk deep down in a pile of work of some sort.  So how do I break away from all the stuff that keeps me so busy?  I can’t just quit my job and stop doing everything else I do, but I do have to find a way to slow down.  I don’t know how I am going to do it, but I have to trust that God will lead me and show me, I just have to be looking and listening for his direction.  I have to learn to say no to some things, things that are not necessarily bad things, but things that keep me too tied up.  I can no longer try to please everyone, but my goal should be to please Christ and if I do that then everything else will begin to fall into place.  I have always been the type of person that wanted everyone to like me, I have always wanted to please everyone, but I have learned that that is impossible, so I have to change my ways and concentrate on the plan that God has for me.  I have to learn to let go of what I think is right, to let go of trying to please everyone, to let go of the busyness…I have learn to lose my life everyday!  Really what would it matter if I gained the whole world, but lost my soul in the process?  I don’t want any part of this world that would cost me my life with Jesus!