Lose Your Life

Matthew 16:26: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Your soul is worth more than the whole world. You won*t be in the world for very long. Perhaps 70 years, perhaps even a hundred. Just to choose a number, consider how much longer than a hundred years a million years is. Not even worth comparing. After your 70 or 100 years are over you will understand the value of the glorious eternity that you will possess or the glorious eternity that you rejected.

Matthew 16:24: Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Family Bible Notes Commentary correctly explains Matthew 16:25 this way:

Whosoever shall save his temporal life by renouncing the Saviour, shall lose his eternal life; and whosoever shall lose his temporal life by following the Saviour, shall secure his eternal life.

Patrick/Lowth/Whitby/Lowman Commentary:

For whosoever will ( choose rather to) save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will (be ready to) lose his life for my sake (and the gospel*s, Mark 8:35) shall find it (either graciously preserved here, or improved into life eternal.)

People*s New Testament Commentary:

Whosoever will save his life shall lose it. He who refuses to deny himself, and makes saving and ministering to his present life his chief object, shall lose his life eternally.

William Burkitt New Testament Commentary:

Observe here, 1. That the love of this temporal life, is a great temptation to men to deny Christ, and renounce his holy religion. 2. That the surest way to attain eternal life, is cheerfully to lay down a mortal life, when the glory of Christ and his service calleth us thereunto.

1 John 2:15: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1 Peter 3:10: For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: 11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.

It is an unimaginable bargain to lose this temporary life for an eternal one. It is a gift of God. Many individuals and religions believe in a shallow Jesus, a Jesus that has no impact upon their lives. I wonder if you have received their version of Jesus or perhaps your own. We must receive the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus who wants to enter deeply into your heart and life here on earth AND your life in Heaven.

Galatians 2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Romans 6:4: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Living a Christian life on earth is a minor miracle. Getting into Heaven is a major miracle. We all need both miracles.

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