Mark 8:22-38
Living sacrificially is not something normal or natural
to any extent.
Living sacrificially means living against the grain of
human existence, and living against the grain of your own nature.
This probably had something to do with Darwin’s Theory
being accepted to any degree when it was first presented. Though it has many
tragic flaws and errors, Darwin did present one thought that rang clear as a
bell in the human mind: Survival of the fittest.
The whole concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ is a
reflection of a ‘me-first’ lifestyle all of us have been living all our days.
And so we hear the concept of evolution being based on the “survival of the
fittest” and our mind is immediately reminded of all we have ever seen or
experienced. People are naturally selfish, only concerned for their own
welfare, and certainly chiefly interested in their own survival.
Who would you die for?
This is where Jesus begins to separate us from the crowd
of all human existence. Who would you die for – or, better put - is there
anyone you would die for? (The list is probably very short.)
The reason is because you don’t know many people worthy
of you dying for them. You either don’t know them well enough to make that
degree of sacrifice even a consideration or you do know them well enough to
know they are not worth it.
Along comes Jesus, and He establishes the minimum
requirement for being His follower your sacrificial death. In an era when
others are killing people because they refuse to believe in what they command
you to believe, Jesus says, “I willingly die for all men that they may believe
in Me.”
What could better exemplify Godly influence upon a life
than sacrifice? Service? A sense of concern for the eternal rather than the
temporal? Not me-first, but you-first – and in every arena of life. This is
life in Christ. If you lose your life you will find it.
-Pastor Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment