“The Grace of Loss”

    “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).

     In God’s economy, gain is loss, and loss is gain.

    When a son or daughter of Adam’s lost race finds “his life,” he sooner or later discovers that “if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23).  The caricature of “life” found apart from the Lord Jesus Christ may offer a moment or two of seeming vitality, exhilaration, happiness, and sense of purpose.  Loss always looms, however, as fool’s gold awaits every prospector who seeks fortune in that fleshly bauble which glimmers for a time, but which disappoints for an eternity.

     The wisest of Adam’s race sought to find his life in every way imaginable.  Solomon came back from the quest with the sad report, “There’s nothing there!  There’s nothing anywhere in this fallen world!  All is vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).  The king’s message declares the emptiness of heart that awaits all who trust in dust, as it were.  As the Lord Jesus said, we find ourselves only to lose ourselves if our own fulfillment and happiness becomes the quest of our hearts.

    The Gospel of Christ blessedly offers the possibility of loss, the loss of our deluded notion that the life can be found in the graveyard of ourselves.  “I am… the life” declared the Lord Jesus.  “To live is Christ” responded the Apostle Paul (John 14:6; Philippians 1:21).  What is our response?  Do we believe that anything or anyone other than our Savior can fill and fulfill our hearts?  Do we view anyone or anything else as indispensible to our joy and peace?  Are we confident that we could lose all without losing anything, so long as the Lord Jesus remained?  Have we discovered the truth that in this life, gain is loss and loss is gain? 

     The Spirit of God beckons to our hearts in this moment to end the futile quest that life can be found in our own perspective, pleasure and purpose.  It cannot.  Life exists only in He who “is thy life” (Deuteronomy 30:20).  May our Lord grant to us much grace, the grace of loss, so that He might bless us with the gain found only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”

(Philippians 3:7-8)