Scriptural reading Matthew 16:25-26,19:21
At times, for most of us, winning is always the best thing to happen. This is what most of our parents tell us when we were young. Always strive to be on top whether we are on a competition or not. We are told that success is tied up by becoming a winner.
What about in our spiritual lives? What is winning and losing is all about? Is winning good all the time? Is losing a bad thing? God has already something compatible and totally fitted for our spiritual lives.
Matthew 16:25
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Jesus knows we are made up of. We are to live and survive the toughest way. Our disposition is to cling on to our dear life.The problem with this is that the WAY we live our lives. We have this certain kind of impulse or force that is uncooperative and a submissive thing in us and that has to be cut off from us through Jesus Christ in order not to take advantage of people, situations or things or even to ourselves. As long and the longer that we will be carrying out these affairs, we will lose our lives. Life in the bible sometimes refer to the soul. The soul which contains all our beliefs, principles and decisions reside. It can also be called as our self awareness or self consciousness.
Let us take a look at these 2 kinds of loses. The last part of the passage Jesus is simply telling us though it is indeed how unbearable for us to lose the things we save, we are going to lose it inevitably but on the other hand,if we are going to lose it for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus we are winning the likeness of His character, we are winning the unquestionable,irrefutable everlasting life.
Matthew 19:21
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me.
In this passage the thing that we have to learn from God about is how to handle losing or how to lose. Jesus said to him that he should sell everything. To sell in Greek is “Poleo” probably ultimately from pelomai (to be busy, to trade) ; to barter (as a pedlar) meaning to sell or sell, whatever is sold. When some one trade during that time it means automatically that person gains something more than he or she wants and the man in the story has a lot of things to barter and therefore he has got a lot of things to gain and Jesus said what ever he will gain he will give it to the poor.
The problem lies not in the money that we hardly earn but the attitude that we have over our possessions. If these possessions turn out to be more important than our Lord and savior Jesus then we truly lost our spirituality.
It is a must and better to lose these material things that are really and easily for us to love. It is the best to lose these things in our hearts that make us to love more relating to ourselves and the material things we possess and then finally to win. Why win? For Christians the most significant is to win Jesus in our hearts. He is the prize for losing all those things that we easily love and above all He paid the price for the forgiveness of our sins.
So…Why win? Now we know why…, It is better to lose!