‘For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, and the gospel’s, the same shall save it’ (Mark 8:35) … The Lord tells us plainly that if we save our lives in this world, we will lose them in the world to come. And if we lose our lives in this world, we will save them in the life to come. What does that mean? It means two things.
1. If we seek to be saved by what we do, we will not be saved. If you put your works anywhere in salvation as a causing or even a contributing factor, you will not be saved. But if you lose all hopes of saving yourself, and look to Christ alone, you will be saved!
2. But it also means, if you save yourself from the persecutions or hardships involved in following and confessing Christ, you will find on judgement day that you will be lost for ever! But if you lose your life here, and ‘count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung’, you will be saved in the world to come! This shows us that faith is more than believing a proposition! It is a surrender, a bowing to, as willing recipient of the Lord Jesus Christ … Christ is not merely very important… He is all!
