Josh’s Thoughts

Jesus said:

Mat 10:39 GNB
(39) Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.

This is one of Jesus’ statements that must have left a lot of people going, “Huh?” I can almost imagine all the religious people around Jesus making little crazy signs behind His back when He said this. After all, everyone knows that you can’t find your life by losing it. That’s just crazy-talk!

At least, it is to us.

But Jesus knew something that modern philosophers are just now starting to figure out. Jesus knew that we’re all a bunch of slaves.

“But Josh,” you say, “I’m not a slave!”

Oh? Let me ask you this, then: What controls you?

Sex? Drugs? Alcohol? Money? Education? Respect? Whatever you can’t stop doing, or whatever you live for, that’s your master. Look at how the Apostle Paul put it:

Rom 6:16 GNB
(16) Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey—either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being put right with God.

To Paul it was just good common sense. Whatever you’re giving yourself to, that’s your master. People can be slaves to clothes, money, pleasure, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever, but everyone’s going to serve something.

All of this is pretty depressing until you realize that there’s a way out. His Name is Jesus.

You see, one of the ways that you freed a slave in the Roman Empire was to buy that slave, and then set them free. It was called redeeming them. That’s why the word “redemption” is used so often in Christianity. We Christians realize that we all used to be enslaved to sin until Christ paid the price on the Cross that set us free.

But don’t listen to me, read what Paul says instead, because he puts it best:

Rom 6:21-23 GNB
(21) What did you gain from doing the things that you are now ashamed of ? The result of those things is death!
(22) But now you have been set free from sin and are the slaves of God. Your gain is a life fully dedicated to him, and the result is eternal life.
(23) For sin pays its wage—death; but God’s free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

So now what Jesus said in Matthew 10:39 is starting to make a little more sense. Jesus was saying that we’re all a bunch of slaves who are stumbling around trying to find our freedom, but the only way that we will ever be free is to give ourselves to Him. When we do that we become a slave to Christ, and in finding slavery we become free. He did all the hard work, and we get all the benefits.

Crazy? Yeah, I suppose so…to humans anyway.

Lots of people say that Jesus does thing backwards, but I’m convinced that it’s us who do things backwards. Jesus came to set us all straight.

Want to find life? Give it up to Jesus.

I know, I know. That sounds like it came straight out of the Jesus Freak movement in the 70s. Well, maybe it did, but I guess that makes me a Jesus Freak, and I’m ok with that.

Sometimes I wonder what would stop a person from wanting to be free. The only answer that I can come up with is fear. You see, Jesus paid the price to set us free, He only told us that we had to accept our freedom by accepting Him. I think that the reason more people don’t accept Him is because they’re afraid. We all want to be in control, and Jesus demands that we give up control of our life and give it over to Him. That’s a scary thought. It still scares me sometimes. But the good news is that there’s nothing to be afraid of, because Jesus promised that He only wants the best for us. In John 10:10 He said, “I have come in order that you might have life–life in all its fullness.”

What a beautiful concept!

I think that the best way to conclude this blog entry is with words of the Apostle Paul in Corinthians. Some people don’t like Paul, I know, but the guy knew his stuff. This is what he had to say about what happens when we give everything to Christ:

2Co 5:17-20 GNB
(17) Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come.
(18) All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
(19) Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
(20) Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!

I’ll mimic the words of Paul: Please, if you’re an enemy of God because of your sin, then give everything to Him and let Him change you from an enemy to a friend. And when you do that–when you give your life away–you will find the only true life.