To have life is to give it away.
It’s one of the paradoxes of the Christian life. To have control is to surrender it. To admit weakness is to find His strength. Life comes out of death. It’s an idea that has been repeated in my life in the past few days but one that I hope becomes a part of my soul and outward expression.
““If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” – Mark 8:34-35
Dallas Willard says this on the subject:
The sayings of Jesus above are most often taken as expressions of some ethereal truth for especially religious people.
Instead, they are mere observations about how life actually works.
As is so often the case with statements of Jesus, they say nothing about what we ought to do. They simply state how things are.
Anything with life in it can flourish only if it abandons itself to what lies beyond it, eventually to be lost as a separate being, though continuing to live on in relation to others.
Life is inner power to reach and life “beyond.”
If I am to live on and experience life to the fullest, I must abandon myself to God. Completely and utterly. I must give him my life if I want to preserve it. There is no use in keeping my life to myself, for myself. To do so is not only selfish and cowardly but according to Christ, but aimless and pointless. To live in abandon is the only way to truly live.
Sixty-six books in a year 