Nothing Left to Lose

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it." Luke 9:24

Jesus gives a pretty radical statement here. He says that surrendering your life to Him is the only way to save your life. By holding on and clutching control of your life to fulfill desires of selfish ambition, money, notoriety, and satisfaction from others ultimately leads to losing your life.

This is the idea of God's grace. That God has bought us back even while we were still helpless sinners who couldn't love him. He saved us from our sin, and brought us new life. Now, there is nothing left to lose. Because our life is hidden in Christ (Gal. 2:20), we are free to live as agents of God's love and grace to others. Because Jesus has paid our penalty, and given us new life (2 Cor 5:14-21), we are now able to live in obedience to him.

Needtobreathe's lyric says "We've got nothing else to live for, nothing left to lose." Surely you can take this a number of ways. Here is my thought on this. This could pertain to our right standing, or righteousness before God. Because of Jesus' substitution for me on the cross, I have no need to strive and attain my own righteousness. Jesus' righteousness before has been imputed to me (sorry for the theological words). For those in Christ, we have no more need to seek perfection, to attain God's favor, for we already have it.

Ergo, in our lives, we have nothing left to lose. The first question that arises is, "So does that mean I can do whatever I want whenever I want?" The answer is No. (Rom. 6). But we are free to live in grace according to the Word of God. We are free from the law and the curse of sin, and are now under grace.

I want my life to be continually reminded of how God's grace has freed me from the curse of sin, and how I am now free.

"For we are a fragrance of Christ to God amont those who are being saved and among those who are perishing." 2 Corinthians 2:15.