Of these words is an Immense blessing, though

very much misunderstood, particularly when considered within the

context of the previous words...

These above words, it must be remembered are based upon the

following words of The Lord,  which are... "For whosoever will

save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his

life for my sake and The Gospels, the same shall save it"

No Human being has got a "Life"; The

sentence of death and the reality of death hangs over every

individual.You often hear Christians say "...The  Lord has blessed

my life" or pray "...Lord, would you please bless my life today"

but the reality is......If we hadn't come to Christ we would be abiding

in death. "He who hath The Son hath Life and he that hath

not The Son of God hath not life" [1 John 5:12.] so the only life

a believer has is Christ! We need to "see" clearly that we haven't got

a life but that our life is poor and beggarly and even dead as Paul

said in Colossians 3:3..."For ye are dead and your life is hid with

Christ in God." So therefore it can be soundly concluded that

"our life" is beggarly and poor because, with all the "things" it may

be packed with, it all goes only as far as the grave and leaves us

with emptiness for eternity. Seeing  then it is a well established

fact that "Our life" is a fairly worthless affair to try and save, then we

are left with the great opportunity to "Lose it";  (as Jesus said )

"for my sake".

Please think much upon the following

statement....

Where then do we lose our Life?

We lose our life when we become lost in, and Captivated

by Christ.

This Reality is sounded out in The Lord's words "..... For my sake

and The Gospel's" [Mark 8:35.]

There can be found a lovely clue in the Greek Interlinear of The King

James version of The Bible and it goes thus: "Whosoever shall lose

his life on"....

...... "The same shall save it."

Thus is the beautiful and simple means whereby we "Lose our Life", and

that happens by The Spirit of God; and on such an "account of" Christ

by revelation of The Spirit, we become so "Captivated" by The

Greatness, Goodness and beauty of The Lord and are changed into

His Image, losing our pathetic and beggarly life to experience as Paul

said "That I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

This change happens as we read in 2 Corinthians 3:18 "Beholding as in

a glass The Glory of The Lord we are changed into the same Image from

Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of The lord."

The "Glass" is "The ministration of the Spirit" through The Word of God

as made very clear in the case that Paul presents in the whole chapter

about God's servants not  being Ministers of  the "letter" which kills but

being ministers of The new Testament in The Spirit because "The

Spirit giveth Life".

Denying self has to happen, we cannot expect to

"apprehend that for which Christ has apprehended" us and  to be

where He is and be part of what He is doing if we are "self centered".

The Lord is not with us, nor is He with where we are at, and what we are

doing if the governing factor is "self".

True, we can be confident that as He has said "I will never leave thee, nor

forsake thee" but that  does not mean that The Lord is going to "be in"

what we are about or bless and make a blessing out of what we are doing

if our motivation is self.

Self can be  very  sophisticated behind very many glowing expressions of

good works and kind deeds, but the motivation can be for self glory, and

self  righteousness and  attention getting.

Self can preach, Pray, witness and undertake many  spiritual tasks, often

with brilliance, but can be void of vitality and life  giving energy because

it is all void of The Spirit of God.

Self can be kind and at the same time be deceitful, calculate and

manipulate to achieve an advantage but rarely knows the joy of seeing

The Lord by His own work display His Grace and Glory.

Self is ugly and to view selfishness in action is indeed an ugly sight, and if

we don't know how to love and consider, wife, husband, children, church,

neighbour, employer, servants and others before ourselves  then  we will

lack "The Blessing of The Lord that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow

with it" and we will be left with a wearyness of "living the Christian life".

It must be remembered that "self" is a problem to us all and will be

particularly evident in young believers, for they are as Paul said,

"Babes in Christ" and evidence of this self element in them is often

unconscious and understandable but where there is a deliberate and

calculated effort of self in the work of God then this is of grave concern.

One of the fruits of The Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:23. is

"Temperance" which is "self control" and of course this instruction

shows that we need help in this matter of "self denial" and without

comprehending "Life in The Spirit" we can strive to teach "self"

to deny "self" till the cows come home but every effort will be fruitless.

in John 15 concerning fruitfulness, that

branches in Him cannot "bring forth fruit of itself." [John 15:4.]

We can no more bring forth this fruit of (The Spirit) of "self control"

than a branch that is detached from a tree can bear fruit!

Self Centerdness is the root of all sin as stated in Isaiah 53:6.

What then is the answer?

As Paul said about

his one and only Quest, and that was....

Praise The Lord for the glorious truth revealed in this statement of

Paul's passion to know The Lord!

Please notice the order of things and that the first thing is Life!

This life is Resurrection power!

Jesus said "I came to give Life and Life more abundantly" [John 10:10.]

It is impossible to know The Lord and not live.

He is the source of All Life!

In Knowing Him we enter into...

..... The greatness of His Life!

Who he is and what power and Glory is His reveals Self in all its

beggarly qualities of Nothing and this causes a meltdown of self

by one degree after another according to John 3:30. "He must

Increase but I must decrease".

But it happens by Resurrection Power!

And then by that power we are able to enter into "The fellowship of

His sufferings"; enabled by that same power to endure the conflicts,

troubles and oppositions against us and His work through us, for

His glory.

Please Notice that in this  process of growth in  spiritual Maturity, it

starts with Life and the end event of "being made conformable unto

his death" comes last and is accomplished with the  joy that Paul

spoke of in 2 Corinthians 4:10-18 "....For we which Live are alway

delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the Life also of Jesus might

be made manifest in our mortal flesh....."for our light affliction, which

is but for a moment, worketh for us a FAR MORE EXCEEDING AND

ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY".

What a great encouragement we find in His Word to "Follow on to

Know The Lord"! [Hosea 6:3.]

Jesus Loves You.

God Bless.