It’s not about me. It has to be about Jesus.
That isn’t how our world works though. The world that we live in is all about what we want and need. Fulfillment and reaching out and grasping our dreams, making them reality. The world we exist in focuses on the self; on the person I want to become.
We are all about grasping this life and taking everything we can from it ‘cause you only live once!
But that isn’t what Jesus calls us to. He reflects a very different culture of living, a very different kind of dream to grasp hold of.
He tells us:
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for my sake will save it.”
Luke 9:24
Jesus demonstrates this. There was never an attempt to save his life. There was never an attempt to draw people into the battle for his life and his fears. He makes this clear when he prays on the Mount:
“Father, if you are willing removed this cup from me.
Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
Luke 22:42
The call to save one’s life but the willingness to see the will of God done. It was the love within the trinity, a relational conviction that one submits to the other. A picture of how we are to lean into the will of God, not our own. To learn, sometimes in the hardest trials and difficulties, that it isn’t what we want, but it’s really about Jesus.
The Apostle Paul articulates this well for us when he writes to the church in Philippi. He tells them:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, but taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to eh point of death, even death on a cross.”
Phil. 2:5-8
It is the sentiment, that we do not look to our own selfish desires, those things that we want and feel that we need but to look to others. It is a reflection of Jesus. It is what we are called to do and to fully live out. To give fully of self for the other, for the stranger, for the saviour that paid the ultimate price for us.
It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus.
Does our life point to the one who created us, molds us and makes us new creations? Does our being and doing demonstrate his love and compassion?
What do our actions say about our commitment to be about his work and sharing the gospel of his great love for each and every one?
These are hard questions. They are hard to answer and are just as hard to ask because it requires us to intentionally look at our own lives and ask ourselves first. I have to ask myself first. To self-evaluate.
Is what I do and who I am about me, or is it about Jesus?
Have I taken seriously the call to give up what I want for the call that God has for me?
That is what it is, it’s not a literal giving up our lives…although at some point it might be (like Stephen in Acts 7). It’s about dying to self. We can’t take up a cross when we are too busy carrying our baggage and self-desires.
Grab hold of what Jesus offers and die to self. Don’t try to save everything that surrounds you, your material possessions and desires of the heart. Release them so that you grab hold of Jesus. He knows what it means to open your eyes to what he has for you.
It is the journey we are on. A journey with Jesus. A journey where we follow and he leads. Don’t force it, walk with him, beside him, follow after him and experience his grace as you give up the life you once lived for the reality of eternal relationship with him. Revel in it. Experience his goodness.
Will you make it all about Jesus?
