March 3: Luke 9:22-25

Key Verse: Luke 9:24
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

Devotion:
Have you ever been puzzled by these verses? Should we really have to give our lives up just to be with God? Well, yes, but not to take our lives or anything like that. What is said here by Jesus is we should be willing to give up on our personal dreams, desires and wants in order to follow the path God has laid down before us; that sort of giving up!

Jesus came into the world to be our sacrifice. In order to do that, He would have to give up all of His titles which we rightly give Him in order to be our humble and righteous sacrifice. He came as our Messiah, our King of Kings. He had to give up that title and be a humble human being to be in a position to give up His life for us.

He wants us to be willing to do what is asked of us too; just as God asked Him to step forward and allow Himself to be at the mercy of the human beings, the chief priests, elders and teachers of the law. Those very people who corrupted the law and were taking more for themselves than giving to God. This is what Jesus wanted to get rid of, the human corruption which was taking away from the worship of God!

What good is it if we are able to be the richest person on earth if we cannot take any of those riches with us when we die. What good is it to have all those riches but not to be happy? What good is it if we loose out on getting to Heaven just because we turned our backs on God because of the temptations of this world. Turn your back on the glorification of the world and turn towards Christ!

Points to Ponder:
What is the most important thing in your life?

Would you be willing to give that to God?