Continuing the core principle of discipleship, Jesus presents the ultimate irony of life, the supreme paradox. He lays before them a truth that is completely incomprehensible to all but those who genuinely believe and trust in Him. This teaching, once embraced, is like what science hypothetical calls a worm-hole between postulated alternate universes. When a believer in Christ comes to grips with the Lord’s teaching here, he is transformed into an entirely new way of looking at the world and of behaving in the world—because he now actively lives in the “new to him” reality of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

The principle is simple in statement, but profound in application. To save one’s life, one must lose it. And the corollary, or should we say complementary truth, if one loses his life for Jesus’ sake, then he, in fact, will find it.

Our contemporary world, ironically, has popularized the notion that a person must find him or herself.  This is nothing new, Adam and Eve, our seminal parents, attempted that same thing in the garden, at Satan’s behest, who essential said,  “Go ahead and find yourself … apart from God. Before you can relate to the creator deity, you first must discover who you are.” Such thinking places oneself above God, or at least equal to God. Such thinking leads to devastation, the Bible says it brings death—loss of who God made you to be.

Jesus is simply saying that the right way of living as it was intended to be lived is to live for God, as revealed in Jesus, and not for oneself.  The consequences of getting this wrong are enormous. What advantage is there if one appropriates everything one desires here, when it costs ultimately his very own soul, the image of God placed in him. One loses the most important thing in exchange for everything else, the sum of which is worth far less.

We are constantly bombarded with the opposite truth in today’s world, incessant messages from all around us urging to live for yourself and the gusto of life—even Christians sometimes slip into such superficial thinking. The psalmist struggled as well, “As for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked … ” (Ps 73:2-3). But, he concludes , “Until I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end. Surely You set them in slippery places ” (vs. 17-18).