Complete Abandon, Luke 9:24-25

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?"

     What does it mean to lose your life for Jesus' sake? In a sense, it means that you don't necessarily consider what you have planned as important, but rather you put His will and His purposes first in your life. Your life becomes a monument to His good will, a storybook written by Him. But what else does it mean to lose your life?
     In the fullest sense of the phrase, to lose one's life means to die. Does Jesus want us to die for His sake? Is this a passage on martyrdom? In a sense, no, but in a sense, yes. Jesus does not expect us to literally die for His sake (yes, some are called to be martyrs, but I'm speaking generally here-- we are not all called to be martyrs for our faith). But He does expect us to die to ourselves. That is, He wants us to completely lay down all of our wants, all of our needs, all of our hopes, all of our dreams for His sake. This is a complete abandon of your own life, given up for His sake.
     What does it look like when we give our lives over in complete abandon to Jesus Christ? Well, complete abandon implies-- or rather, demands-- just that: completeness of abandonment. If you completely abandon, say, your car... You are not going to try and get it back, you're not going to think about how you're going to use it, and you're not going to go out looking for it, because you know it's not yours anymore. Your ownership of that car is a nothing more than a memory, something of the past that is no more. We should do the same with our lives. If we completely abandon our lives to Jesus, we're not going to try and get them back, we're not going to spend time pondering how we can use them, and we're not going to go out seeking to make a life for ourselves. Our lives are no longer ours. Controlling our own lives becomes a thing of the past, a distant memory.

     This may seem scary-- but this is walking by faith. It is completely trusting God to take care of everything for you. No longer are you planning and plotting your own way, dreaming about what you will do or where you will go, but you are praying and asking God what He would have you do, and where He would have you go. This builds closeness and intimacy with God, which is our entire reason for existence.
     We see in verse 25 that Jesus comments, "what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?" This verse has an implication that I never noticed before: If we are not living our lives for Him-- if we have not lost our lives for His sake-- then we are living for ourselves and for the world. There is no middle ground. And Jesus points out that it does not profit a man to gain even the whole world and yet lose his own self (that is, he's become lost in his trying to attain a life for himself, losing the abundant, Spirit-filled life God has for him), or even worse, his very soul (being so caught up that he is not only missing out on the Spirit-filled life, but on savlation in Christ).

     If we aren't living a life completely surrendered to Jesus, we've really missed the whole purpose and meaning of life, and thus we have lost our lives. Life is not about material possessions, marriage, friends, homes, or fame. It is not about careers, money, fulfilling your life's goal, or being happy. Life is about Jesus. We were made by Him and for Him. If we aren't living for Him, we've missed out on the very purpose for which we were created.
     But if we lose our lives for His sake-- if we lay down everything so that we can be nothing less than a blank canvas awaiting our Master's artistry-- then we have found life. And this is true life, life to the fullest, life abundant and overflowing. What can we hold onto that is worth holding onto? What is there that is more important than living for Him? There is nothing, no one, no place that can compare to Jesus Christ. To live with a divided heart is to rob yourself of life, is to be utterly foolish.