Losing Your Life
Following Jesus is all about losing your life. In His eyewitness account of Christ, Luke wrote,
Then he said to them all,“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24 (CSB)
Our natural tendency as human beings is to try to hold on to our lives. We don’t want to give up control of our lives to anything or anyone. People want to be the captains of their souls. We seek to build our own kingdoms rather than to seek the Kingdom of Christ. The irony is that this pursuit of control is futile because only God is in control of everything that happens in our lives and in the universe.
Christ followers lose their lives to follow Jesus. We take up the cross of execution daily and die to ourselves so that we may live for Christ each day. This daily dying to self and this posture of losing our life for Christ are central to having Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives.
We follow Him and not ourselves. We look to Him for strength and not to ourselves. We seek His wisdom and not our own. We rely upon Him and not ourselves. We lose ourselves so that we may have Him. We become living sacrifices for Him. (Romans 12:1-2)
The world sees this as foolishness. They see Christ followers as losers; however, by losing ourselves to Christ, we become victors because of His grace and mercy. We experience victory over sin, death, and Hell. We lose ourselves to receive the gift eternal life from Him. We lose ourselves, yet receive Life Himself.
So Christ followers really lose nothing, but receive everything in Christ Jesus! He will never leave us, nor forsake us.
Blessings!
Tim McKnight is the founder and President of McKnight Ministries©, the nonprofit parent of Engage Every Generation. He is an Associate Professor of Missions and Youth Ministry and Director of the Great Commission Center at Anderson University. Tim is on the speaking team for Clayton King Ministries. Also, he is the lead pastor and planter of a new church plant, Mosaic Church of Anderson. Tim is the author of No Better Gospel (2017), Engaging Generation Z (Kregel 2021), and editor of Navigating Youth Ministry (B&H Academic 2022).
Tim started ministry in 1991 and has served churches in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina as a youth pastor, associate pastor, and lead pastor. He holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Bluefield College, and a M.Div. and Ph.D. from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His primary field of study for the Ph.D. was in evangelism, with additional studies in missions and church history. His dissertation was on The Theology and Methodology of Evangelism of George Whitefield.
He served as a US Army Chaplain in the Kentucky Army National Guard, deploying on Operation Noble Eagle (2001) and Operation Enduring Freedom (2002). He is a recipient of the Kentucky Army National Guard Distinguished Service Medal.
He is a husband to Angela, father to Micah, Noah, Karissa, and MaryAnna. The most important thing he would want you to know about himself is that he is a follower of Jesus Christ.
