For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (ESV)

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. (NIV)

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. (NLT)

Dive Deeper:

Throughout our lives, we westerners are taught to save and invest so that at the ripe age of 60 we can retire and live the rest of our days with a surplus of comfort. Save, save, and save some more. 

What if I offered you a new type of retirement. I told you that if you gave away all of your money–to the very last cent before 60, you’d find more wealth than you could ever imagine waiting for you? Well, in short, this is the kind of life Christ calls us to time and time again. It’s the upside down kingdom. 

When we give, we receive. When we die to ourselves, we find life. When we serve others, we are truly satisfied.

If your goal is to please yourself and gain the world, you will lose everything. But if your aim is to serve rather than be served, to give rather than receive, to die to yourself and live for others, you will find fulfillment and joy.

As Jesus approached the day of His crucifixion, He made a bold claim “no one can take my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord,”(John 10) and a few verses later, He assures that no one who truly follows Him can be “snatched out of His hand”

Christ has dominion over His own life and over ours, yet He chose to lay His life down. He did so out of His great love for us, knowing that on the other side was victory and true life. In John 13, He gives us a new commandment: to love one another as He has loved us—sacrificially. Love through death. Life through death. When we willingly lay down our lives for the sake of the Gospel, just as Christ did for us, we find eternal life.

You can lose everything in life—except what you give away.

If you spend your life storing up what only appears to bring security, you will lose it all. But Jesus offers a different kind of retirement plan—one that pays dividends for eternity. Give everything, your whole entire life, for the sake of the Gospel, and you will not only save your life, but receive an eternal reward in the presence of God as His son or daughter. Let Jesus take dominion over your entire life. Lose it to find it. 

Written by Blake Stanley