All or nothing

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

ALL OR NOTHING

Matt 16:24-28

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." 

NIV

A powerful statement is made here by Jesus, not that any of his statements are without power, but this seems to be at the center of Christianity. What Jesus is telling us here is that it is impossible to live as a believer and also live our own non-believing lives. The question is: What does a non-believing life look like compared to a believing life. The central theme goes back to when Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters, God and money. A non-believing life, and notice we do not say a non-believers life, is one who has not yet given up self-reliance, self-dependence and selfish pursuits for the sake of gaining Christ fully. This implies we cannot be a believer, a follower of Jesus and still want to have all the fame and fortune of this world. We need to deny that self within us, that self who wants all the stuff, all the material things, all the “good life”, all the money in the bank that can afford us to have want ever, whenever, we want, or just be content to sit and count all that we have in the bank. This is what Jesus means by gaining the whole world. If we are so bent on the things we may well not be so bent on following Jesus and therefore are in danger of losing our life, which means our soul. So within the context of the words of Jesus here, there are two lives we can live, one or the other, but not both, not a portion of one and a portion of the other. It is an either or situation.  This is a choice we must make. Jesus tells us that when he returns all people will be rewarded for what they have done. The Greek word translated reward means to give back. Jesus will give back to each person what choice he made, what he has done. If a person denied himself and took up his cross and followed Jesus, he will receive eternal life. If a person did not deny himself, but continued to pursue his own personal agenda, seeking after fame and fortune, the things of this world, then Jesus will give that back to him as well. He will lose eternal life and be burned up with the world. Oh sure we all face temptations and we all fail to resist them one hundred percent of the time. Some of those temptations, if not all, are based on selfish pursuits in one way or another. That would be a form of not denying self. It does not appear Jesus is making the case that if we follow him, if we deny ourselves, we will never sin again. But this goes back to seeking first his Kingdom. How can we seek first his kingdom and want to have what we want when we want it? How can we serve both Jesus and self? Do we compartmentalize our lives? Do we have our physical life, and our spiritual life? Do we think as long as we love the Lord our God with all our spiritual life, we can still pursue after want we want in our physical life? Do we seek him first, sort of, so that he will add all these things unto us? That is to say do we follow Jesus for the physical, material blessings he gives to us? It appears we cannot even ever think like that. We need to deny all that is associated with our self wants in order to fully be devoted to Jesus. Although that might sound easy, it is very difficult to achieve. However our eternal life in Christ is not disturbed by our failure, if we have accepted him as our Lord and Savior. Our salvation is not dependent on our perfection, but on his. Yet at the same time we have to acknowledge we cannot run after the things of the world while professing Jesus is our Lord. We may yield to one of those temptations from time to time, but we are not forsaking our main goal of following Jesus. We just cannot follow him, carry our cross, perfectly, we will stumble occasionally. This is what the Apostle Paul was saying when he declared that war the wages within. The things we want to do, we do not, and the things we do not want to do we do. Those who have never denied themselves anything are in fact denying Jesus, denying to carry their own cross at all. They do not want to follow him or his lifestyle, they pursue fully after their self-agenda and therefore will ultimately lose their lives, their souls. We have gained eternal life, and we will continue to pursue Jesus. The last statement of Jesus about some of his disciples’ not tasting death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom has a need to be explained. Surely Jesus did not mean they would live until the rapture, or the new age, or the day of Judgement, or Jesus and his army coming in the clouds to defeat Satan once and for all, at the battle of Armageddon. Surely all his disciples tasted death at the end of their physical lives. However if Jesus meant, and it surely appears he did, that they would not die before they observed the church spreading, his glory, his kingdom spreading across the world. Many of them did see that. We can read all about their acts. They were being part of this spreading of the Gospel to both the Jews and the Gentiles. Both Luke and Mark make this clearer in their record of what Jesus said.

Luke 9:27

27 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God." 

NIV

Mark 9:1

9:1 And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." 

NIV

So we have to conclude this is what he was telling them, however, we could still make a personal application to that statement. We could say that we will not taste death until we see the power of the kingdom of God coming fully in our lives. This walk with our Lord is surely a journey which requires growth. The more we read, the more we hear, the more we study, the more we understand, the more we should be growing in our faith, or trust, our obedience and our desire to please him. He wants us to be fully committed to him, denying the self within us. This make take the whole, the rest of our days here on earth. But we can be certain as we face that moment of our last breathe, if we are blessed enough to have that occur because of old age, or illness rather than a sudden crash, we will have no choice but to leave all behind and be fully looking for Jesus. There is no trailer on a hearse, we cannot take any of this world with us into the kingdom of God, so then why are we so interested in the accumulation of the things? Before we taste death, the Kingdom most come in all its power.  It has to come down to all or nothing.