Sometimes I am alarmed at how slow I am to pick up on certain truths.

Today is one of those days.

In fact, I what I am about to write about today feels so simple I’m nearly embarrassed to commit it to writing but I’m an honest guy who writes what I am learning, and today this truth became very clear to me.

I’ve written before about the upside down Kingdom of God. How Jesus would speak Kingdom truths that seemed so alien to those of us who are so accustomed to earth. One of those truths that has always jumped out to me is when Jesus talks about us keeping or trying to save our lives. It’s something He mentions a lot. Here are a few examples in the gospels;

• “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Mark 8:35. Jesus says this after He tells a crowd that to be His disciples they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him. Luke and Matthew record the same interaction although Matthew says it like this; Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:39
• Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. Luke 17:33. When Jesus is talking to the disciples about the coming of the Kingdom after a conversation with the Pharisees
• Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25. This happens after some Greeks who were at a festival are seeking to talk with Jesus.

These are tricky words for my modern day westernised ears. All of us because we have been born into this earthly kingdom find it difficult to break the idea that we are in control in our life and that our life is the most important thing that we have to guard and protect. It is the most natural thing for us to think. We look after ourselves better than anything else. We spend our days feeding, hydrating, cleaning, protecting, filling, resting and providing enjoyment for those bodies of ours. These bodies and the thoughts and emotions that go along with them are our everything. The thought that we should ‘give them up’ to someone else seems like an absolute reversal of everything we have known up to this point.

But there is a simple truth we must acknowledge.

The moment that we believe we have found, kept, or preserved our life we have already lost it. The clue is in the phrase we use; “our life.” When Christ died and rose again He returned true life to us again. No longer were we under the curse of the enemy. No longer were we destined to live apart from God for all eternity. When we make the decision to give our lives to Jesus we are literally returning our lives to Him again. We acknowledge that we are no longer the masters of our life but that He is. We are choosing to live our lives according to His pleasure and instruction. As Paul says;

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

This is an incredible deal. I get to experience eternal life free from the weight of the stuff that weighs me down. And for the 80ish years that I live on this earth, before I receive the fullness of that eternity, I receive the Holy Spirit who will help me as I navigate through the now and the not yet.

Therefore, every time I try to save my life or keep my life I am effectively saying that I am not God’s but mine. I am placing myself back in the driving seat and allowing my needs and my preferences to be the motivator of my day to day. The moment we begin to do this we lose our lives because the sustainer of all life is not our focus.

Why would we detach ourselves from a sustaining source?

As I am writing these words a really silly analogy has just popped into my head. I’m guessing in most of our homes we have a vacuum cleaner of some description. They are super useful. They have the power to lift the dirt from our floors and return them to a clean and more presentable state. However, they would be useless without a power source whether that is the battery that is attached to them or the electricity they are plugged into. But imagine for some reason the vacuum decided that it didn’t need the power anymore and wanted to break free from its supposed restrictions. It believed its own hype and thought about how useful it was. So it tells the battery, the power socket, that it no longer wants to associate with them and will make a break for themselves. How long will it last? Not even one second. By trying to claim full control of its life and not relying on the source of its power it will now lose everything, the very purpose for which it was created.

Told you it was a silly analogy. But it is useful.

Adam and Eve sought to gain control in the garden and even though Christ redeemed us, the desire to be in control of our own destiny is one we seek to wrestle back off Him again and again. What we need to realise is that we will be no better off than the unpowered vacuum cleaner if we are successful in our pursuit.

Let us learn what it means to spend our lives for Jesus. Let’s seek to give Him control and allow Jim to spend us as He sees fit. It will feel so abnormal to us but it will save us. He is the only one whose motives will be pure. He is the only one who will bring us into the fullness of our purpose and rest. Let’s ‘lose’ our lives so that we can truly save them.

A simple truth but a difficult task!