Mark 8:35
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."A lot of us are very familiar with this scripture and can even quote it in our sleep. However, as I pondered over this word this morning it came alive in my heart in a completely different way. When we choose to follow Jesus Christ, He asks us to take up our cross and follow Him. This to my understanding means; us engaging in a daily process of giving up our rights, pride, selfishness and self-righteousness by giving and submitting it all to Him.
This to me is the painful work of death, however in that process like myself and most of you, we have come to find our true selves. The selves that we never knew was even there starts to emerge gradually and beautifully. And when we don't, our urgly selves also emerges for all to see as well. Not only that, but in that dying process we realise how God has carefully and thoughtfully designed us for excellence and unique beauty as we daily surrender and submit our lives to Him. Through that people around become drawn to us desiring to become and live out this kind of excellence and beauty in their own lives. That becomes our testimony and witness to the world. This the Bible says is how we become victorious and overcomers over our addictions, pride, self-righteouness and whatever we have been holding on to in this life in Christ Jesus (Revelation 12:11, "And they were victorious by the blood of The Lamb and by the word of his testimony and they did not love their lives unto death").
Recently, the Lord has been constantly exposing a side and an attitude in me that I have not surrendered unto Him. And that is pride and self-centeredness. For years I have lived in denial and have managed to convinced myself of how humble and selfless I am. Because in our humanness, we love to hold on to the security of our comfort zones, routines and ways of doing things. But what I found in my walk with Jesus that, the closer I get to Him the more He demands of me to let go of all all my securities by dying a little more everyday by just learning to trust Him completely and wholeheartedly.
Today, I don't know what you are holding on to but I came to encourage you it's okay to let go by surrendering it all to Jesus by dying alittle everyday for His love to find complete expression in our lives to the glory of His name. Not only that, but also displaying the excellence and beauty we are created for.
MEMORY VERSE
"And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." Revelation 12:11
All rights reserved 2012, By Enyonam Gbekle.
