Live Again Devotions
Day #4
“Losing Your Life To Find It”
Mark 8:35 (NKJV) For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
The Bible is full of paradox statements. Here in Mark 8:35 is one that brings insight as to how God works in His sovereign wisdom. If you want to find your life, you have to lose it. Lose it to God and to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, if you want to live, you must first die. What an oxymoron; want to live, then die. John 12:24 (NLT) says, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.
If we want to live, we must die. Die to what? Die to our fleshly nature. If one is not living for God, one must die to their sinful nature and start living by the nature of God. We begin this journey, by losing our life to the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is the gospel of Jesus Christ? It is the death, the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You apply this gospel to your life when you die out to your sinful nature in repentance. Then, we must be buried in the watery grave of baptism. And finally, we must receive the resurrection which is the power of the Holy Ghost.
If you are a struggling Christian, you must die out to your lukewarm nature and get the lively fire of God in your life. You acquire this fire when you seek God in prayer. Prayer will fire up your life!
If you have dead things in your life that you want to see live again, then you must get lively faith in God’s power to see them resurrect in your life.
As a rule of thumb, if we want to see God at work in our lives, we must die out to our fallen human nature and allow the living Spirit of God to work in our lives.
So die, so you can LIVE AGAIN!
Read the following scriptures: