More Than Life

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

MORE THAN LIFE

Matt 10:37-39

37 "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

NIV

We are told to love the Lord our God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. When we consider that God so loved the world, that would be all of us, his creation, that he sent Jesus to die for us. However, there is a point where we must come and that is we must be willing to set everything else aside and love Jesus more than anything or anyone. That is easier said than done. We are so distracted by all the things of the world and sometimes we make excuses for spending so much of our time trying to gain worldly goods that it may seem we love the Lord, but in the condition in which we are and we may not be overly willing to give it all up for the sake of the gospel. In fact, we have heard believers say that God has blessed them with a certain amount of wealth so they can do more for the kingdom, yet they live in accordance with their wealth. We have also heard that if we are a believer, it should show in the love we have for others. The problem is that we cannot love others as much as we love Jesus. As far as taking up our cross and following Jesus, we must understand that on that day a criminal was forced to carry their own cross to the place of their crucifixion. Jesus carried his cross until he fell from exhaustion. The point of having a criminal carry his cross was mainly to humiliate him before the city. It did not matter about punishment, for the cross would do that. The point is that we must be willing to be humiliated for the sake of the gospel. Sometimes we feel we should have a good reputation and that our lives reflect the love of Christ and that is true, but at the same time if we are not willing to pick up our cross, our object of humiliation and carry it through the city, would that mean we are not worthy of the Lord? This relates to finding our life, but losing it, for we spent most of our time devoted to our daily living, and the accumulation of possessions and financial security and if this is our main theme in life, then we may lose in the end, and not see eternal life. It seems Jesus is saying that if we profess him as our Lord and Savior, then all else is meaningless. Yes, we have to be concerned with daily life, having an income, paying bills, and all that life entails, but we should not be focused more on that than we are on Jesus. He cannot be a part of our lives; he is our life. Our love for Jesus must be more than our love for life.