What are You Living For ? part 2

The psyche is the real you that lives and breathes and makes decisions. “Life” is not a bad translation so long as we remember that “life” means more than just a physical existence.

What’s the Best Deal You Can Make?

With that background, allow me to paraphrase yesterday’s verses from Matthew 16 this way:

 “Now that you know who I am, are you ready to take up your cross and follow Me? Before you answer, let Me warn you that following Me will seem, in the eyes of the world, as if you are wasting your life. The people of the world will never understand what you are doing. It will seem to them that by following Me, you are throwing your life away.

You always have another option. You can try to save your own life by following your own desires. Many people do that. They live as if their career was all that mattered. But the people who live only for this life, in the end will find they wasted it on things that don’t really matter.

They try to save their life by living for themselves, but in the end, they will lose it. They have wasted their lives on trivial pursuits.

But if you follow Me — though the way will not be easy and you will often be misunderstood — in the end you will save your life. And the people who laugh at you now, will not laugh at you then. They will see you were right, and they were wrong. 

After all, what good will it do if you become the richest person in the world or climb to the top of the corporate ladder or rise to the highest salary level in your company or win the applause of the world? What good will all that do if in the end you find out it was all wasted? What good will that shiny new Lexus do for you then? Will you be able to trade it in for another life? 

No, you won’t. But if you want to live that way, go ahead. Millions of people do. In the end they will be sorry, but by then it will be too late to do anything about it. 

So, what will it be? The way of the Cross? or the way of the world? You’ve got to invest your life somewhere. What’s the best deal you can make?”

That reminds me of the famous words of Bob Dylan: “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” On this point, Bob Dylan and Jesus agree. You’re going to serve somebody. 

The question is: Who will you serve? What’s the best deal you can make?

Was Jesus a Failure?

The life of Jesus is the best answer to that question. Consider the facts of His life and His career:

• He was born in an obscure village in an out-of-the-way province of the Roman Empire.
• He never went to college or seminary; He had no professional training at all; He never had a bank account;
• He owned no property except the clothes on His back;
• He never held public office;
• He never wrote a book
• He never had a wife or children.
• His closest friends were blue-collar workers.
• He felt at home among the outcasts of society;
• His ministry consisted of preaching in the countryside; teaching in synagogues; answering difficult questions; healing the sick and casting out demons.
• His opponents openly accused Him of consorting with the devil.
• Along the way, He made many powerful enemies by exposing corruption in high places.
• Finally, His adversaries captured Him, tried Him in a kangaroo court. and put Him to death.

Was Jesus a failure? To be perfectly honest, by most modern standards, looking only at the surface data, we would consider Him and His career a failure. He never made it to the top. If ever a person seemed to waste their life, it was Jesus.

But consider this: After more than two thousand years…

• His words are remembered and repeated around the world.
• His followers number in the billions and can be found on every continent.
• His personal integrity stands untarnished amidst the attacks of the cynics and the sneers of the ignorant.
• His death, which seemed to be a tragedy, has become the means by which we can be reconciled to God.
• His whole mission on earth, which seemed to be a failure, has now become history’s greatest success story.

How can this be? Jesus was humiliated to the point of death and seemed to lose His life for no purpose whatsoever. Yet, through His death, God exalted Him to the very highest position in the universe: Philippians 2:10-11 “So that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow – in heaven and on earth – and under the earth – and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” CSB.

Continued tomorrow