Listen to the podcast: The Truth Talk Podcast | Lose it to Find it
The full gospel of Jesus Christ in a nutshell is:
The good news that God came down giving up all His rights and privileges to die for us, so we can be free and have everlasting Life through Faith in Jesus. Our Faith in Jesus, reconciles us with God. So, we choose to follow Jesus which requires self-denial and carrying the cross daily.
Why Should We Deny Ourselves to Follow Him?
A key part of this gospel message is self-denial. An aspect of the gospel that is often overlooked. Jesus talks about self-denial in Matthew 16:24-25
'Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:24-25
This verse gives us an idea of what Jesus means when He talks about self-denial. However, He says something so absurd: whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. This counterintuitive statement is the truth that will set us free. Even though it’s not obvious at first read, this statement has deep truth in it that can help us understand self-denial. However, to grasp the reasoning behind Jesus’ words in Matthew 16, we need to go back to the Garden of Eden.
The Story of Death
The Garden of Eden is filled with mysteries and truths hidden in plain sight. Self-denial is one of those truths. To unlock this mystery, we need to look at the command that God gave to the first humans when He left them in charge of the garden.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:16-17
I believe that the original design that God had for humans was to live forever like Him. Just as angels, we were meant to be everlasting beings. If that was not true, that begs the question of why God would talk about death as a consequence of their disobedience. Nevertheless, We all know how the story of the Garden of Eden ended. Mankind sinned and that resulted in God cursing them.
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19
This is a part of the curse that God speaks over Adam. This curse clearly states that man will return to the ground as a consequence of his disobedience; just as God told Him earlier. This curse is so powerful that it has had its play on every single human being who has ever lived. The curse has passed down from generation to generation; all the way to you!
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23
The good news of Jesus tells us that we will have eternal life instead of this death that we deserve. Whoever believes in Jesus, will not die in the spirit but live forever with God in heaven. This is the promise of God. But this promise doesn't deal with the mortal bodies that we are all born into.
I also want to interject and mention that there is a heresy and false teaching saying that a believer of Jesus will not die in the flesh. Please do not believe such teachings. You will die in the physical realm. The promise of God is eternal life for our souls, not our bodies.
Even if you are a Christian, your body will still die one day. The work of Jesus on the cross transforms the physical death into a transition to live with God rather than a dead end. That is the good news. In the state that we're in right now, the only way to escape death in the physical would be to lose our mortal bodies; which is not a viable option. We are still stuck with the mortal bodies. We do not yet have glorified bodies like Jesus did after His resurrection.
This tells us one thing: Our mortal bodies carry the curse of death in them. The body must obey the voice of God and therefore always moves toward death. We also know from Romans 6 that the wages of sin is death. So let's connect the dots.
OUR BODY ALWAYS DEFAULTS TO SIN AS IT LEADS TO DEATH!
Will you Lose it?
Going back to what Jesus said.
whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
I hope the words of Jesus make more sense now that we understand the story of death. Jesus said this for a reason and we know why. Our body will always try to please itself by doing sinful, world and evil acts of disobedience to enforce death upon itself. So as followers of Jesus, we must choose life by dying to ourselves. We must stop trying to gain the things of this world. Instead, we need to focus on living for God and obtain eternal life.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:13-14
Another parable of Jesus gives us a picture of the walk with Jesus: A hard way! Jesus paid the price for sin and has given us the Holy Spirit. When we choose Jesus, we receive forgiveness of sin and the ability to overcome it through the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the path is not easy in any way. Jesus paid for what we could never do on our own and expects us to start from victory to live a life of self-denial for His glory. We can do this knowing that denying ourselves for the sake of Christ is the only way to reach heaven one day and is worth it all!
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