“He that flndeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” Matthew 10:39
Most things in life are difficult to hold on to. We live in a world of tough competition, and the generally accepted way to be successful is not by giving things away or by losing them, but by putting forth your best efforts to get and to keep. In how short a time your paycheck is all spent1 How quickly good health vanishes through the experience of a heart attack or stroke! And how rapidly a good reputation, which takes years to build, can be ruined by some deed of dishonesty that becomes known to the public!
The logic of the verse quoted above, therefore, does not strike our fancy when judged by natural human idealism. We shall find something by losing it? We wonder where the author of that axiom had his schooling! That‘s a strange twist of logic! In the school of hard knacks, we learn to get and to find by seeking, by working, by striving, but not by losing! And besides, doesn‘t the Bible say: “Seek and ye shall find”?
The author of those words, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is talking about that very basic and fundamental fact of finding ourselves, meaning, coming to know who we arc and what our meaning and purpose is in this world. And when we consider that, then it is not so strange that He should talk about losing in order to find, is it? For there are people losing themselves all the time, everyday, in all kinds of ways, in order to try to find themselves. Trouble is, they are losing themselves in losing things and causes.
Hundreds and thousands of lives have been lost by people who have tried to find their life by losing themselves in the psychedelic world of drugs. Scores more have lost themselves in their work, in their hobby, in their recreation, in their playboy philosophy, in their world of gambling, in their liquor bottle, and in myriads of other things—they have lost themselves in these things in an attempt to give their life meaning and purpose, in other words, to find themselves; but they haven’t succeeded. For they have lost themselves in losing things!
The secret to the success of real finding while losing lies in the thing in which you lose yourself, or more correctly, in the person in whom you lose yourself. “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” “For my sake,” says Jesus; for the sake of the message which He declared, and for His honor! Seek your life there, and you will find it! That’s the only place and the only way to find real meaning and purpose in life. For He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! And whoever confesses Him as Savior and Lord before men, him will the Lord Jesus confess before the Father in heaven. And to be confessed before the heavenly Father by the Lord Jesus is to have the forgiveness of sins and life eternal! And that is to have salvation!
So, no one ever loses by losing himself in Jesus Christ; such a person can only win! There has never yet been a person who has really found himself outside of Jesus Christ. And there has never been a loser among all the countless numbers who have lost themselves in Jesus Christ.
So indeed, it is truel We do really find ourselves, and come to have a meaningful and purpose–filled life, when we lose ourselves for His sake. When we acknowledge that in ourselves we are lost forever; when we confess that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; when we have been emptied of self by His grace, and have professed faith in the only name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved –then we have lost our life in such a way that we have really found it. And those who, by the grace of God, have lost their life in that way, have not only in reality found it, but also have a guarantee written in blood that they shall never lose it again.
This is the miracle of the gospel, that only when we lose ourselves do we find ourselves. And isn’t that also its beauty? I know of no message in all the world so glorious and blessed as this: “And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sin . . . for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory.” Finding in losing! Soli Deo Gloria!