The way to get what we want is to not get what we want
November 8, 2022
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:25
Selfishness has become a virtue in today’s world. Who would have thought! Back in our youthful days we were instructed in school and church to think about the needs of others first – even in small things. It was impolite to serve yourself first at the table or to push ahead of someone standing in line. Anything that smacked of self-focus or self-promotion was frowned upon. Not so today. Increasingly those who, out of politeness or adherence to the teachings of Jesus, put themselves second or last are seen as foolish.
As Christians, though, we are used to that, aren’t we? We are used to being thought strange, in fact we ought to appear odd to the world because we are not of the world. We belong to another ‘country’ headed by a ruler who says and does the oddest things of all.
The verse quoted above from Matthew16 a passage in which Jesus was talking to His disciples about who He was and what would befall Him. He acknowledges that He is the Son of God but later says he is going to suffer and die. This is odd indeed. The two do not add up until he explains the way of the cross. He tells the disciples to lift their minds a little higher from ‘human things’ to ‘divine things.’ Contrary to human thinking self-focus or self-preservation is not the way to life but the very the antithesis of fulfilment.
Jesus had already demonstrated this by coming to earth as a human being, the incarnate Christ who did not “consider equality with God as something to be grasped but made Himself of no reputation and took on the form of a servant” (see Phil 2:4-8). He was about to demonstrate it even more definitively by going to the cross. Giving up his very life for others.
Phil 2:3-4 tells us point blank to follow this example:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. . .
The temptation to seek more for ourselves is always with us. It’s the temptation Satan used against Adam and Eve: to think they could get more for themselves if they ignored God’s instructions and followed his suggestion. The sad fact is that they ended up with far less - they lost what they already had.
Thank God that as Kingdom people we know this truth that eludes so many in the world: when we give our lives away that’s when we find it in its fullest form. As God’s partners let us wear our badge of oddness boldly as we make self-denial our way of life.
Here’s a hymn written by Charles D. Meigs that expresses this beautifully:
Others Lord, yes Others — Let This My Motto Be
Lord, help me to live from day to day
In such a self-forgetful way
That even when I kneel to pray
My prayer shall be for others.
Others, Lord, yes others-
Let this my motto be.
Help me to live for others,
That I may live like Thee.
Help me in all the work I do
To ever be sincere and true
And know that all I'll do for you
Must needs be done for others.
Let ‘self’ be crucified and slain
And buried deep, nor rise again
And may all efforts be in vain,
Unless they be for others
And when my work on Earth is done
And my new work in Heaven begun
May I forget the crown I've won
While thinking still of others.
