Tag: Life in Christ Jesus

  • Matthew‬ ‭10:39‬ ‭

    “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” – Matthew‬ ‭10:39‬ ‭

    Jesus teaches that following Him begins when we choose Him over ourselves, over our desires, and even over our closest relationships. He calls us to place Him first above our family, above personal dreams, and above our own understanding. He invites us to take up our cross and follow Him. This is where true discipleship begins. Then Jesus goes deeper. He says, “He who finds his life will lose it.” These words confront the way many of us live, and His words challenge us to reflect on the way many of us live, the way we plan, and the way we decide what matters most.

    How many of us decide to get married and build a family before building an intimate relationship with God and seeking His will for that marriage?

    How many of us enter university and choose a career before asking God which path He has prepared for us?

    How many of us start a business without ever asking whether it is truly God’s will?

    How many of us decide how many children we want without asking God how many children He desires to entrust to us?

    How many of us place family above what God has called us to do?

    How many of us assume that because we are gifted or successful in a ministry, it must be the ministry God has chosen for us, without ever asking Him?

    And then we wonder why life feels dull. Why we feel lost. Why we feel it unfulfilled. Why the fire is gone.

    Why there is no direction, no passion, and no real sense of purpose.

    We keep moving, but deep down something feels off, empty, and heavy. It feels like we are breathing but have no life at all.

    The truth is God was never sought first. His will was never valued first or made the priority.

    This helps us understand what the Lord Jesus is teaching to all of us when He says, “He who finds his life will lose it.” The LORD Jesus answered why so much chaos exists in our lives. It comes down to one root issue, “self-seeking instead of God-seeking.” The danger is that self-seeking does not always look wrong. It often disguises itself as wisdom, self-care, or even maturity. And many of us don’t even notice it.

    Pay close attention to the messages that surround you, especially in our generation. Many of them sound normal, but they stand in direct opposition to the Word of God.

    “Find yourself.”

    “What do you get out of this?”

    “How does this serve you?”

    “What are you gaining from this?”

    “Will this fulfill you?”

    “Will this satisfy you?”

    “Will this benefit you?”

    We hear them in movies, in music, on social media, and even from the people we care aboutmost. These voices are loud. But they are not the voice of our LORD Jesus. And if we are not careful, they will slowly shape our decisions, our priorities, and the way we define life itself.

    The LORD Jesus does not ask us what we gain; He asks us what we are willing to lay down.

    Now that we understand there is no life to be found in the life this world offers unless God is sought first and His counsel is set above our own.

    When the Lord Jesus says, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it,” He is not speaking only of physical death but of a life willingly laid down in honor and submission to God.

    This truth is clearly seen in the lives of the apostles.

    Apostle Paul declares, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Paul did not live for himself, nor for his own ambition. He laid down his life for the Lord Jesus, counting everything else as loss for the sake of knowing Christ.

    Apostle Peter also testifies to this same calling when he writes, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind… so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:1–2). Though Peter had many shortcomings, he learned to deny himself and to choose the life appointed for him by the Lord Jesus.

    These men of God did not die to fulfill themselves; they died to fulfill the calling of God upon their lives. This is the death the LORD Jesus calls us to, the death of our own will, our own desires, and our own ambitions. Because whatever governs our life becomes our master.

    If our own will leads us, then we are not living for God but for ourselves. The Lord Jesus set the perfect example for all who belong to God. He said, “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). He also testified, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority… and the works that I do are not My own, but the Father who dwells in Me” (John 14:10). In this, the LORD Jesus shows us how a child of God is meant to live not according to our own will, but according to the will of the Father. Even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends, does not speak on His own authority but speaks what He hears and glorifies God (John 16:13–14).

    Setting aside our will before the will of God is the fulfillment of the first and greatest commandment: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength (Mark 12:30). Yet this is the commandment many of us overlook. To love God in this way means that He must be above what our heart desires and above what our mind reasons. It means that the will of God must come before our own will, before our emotions, before our thoughts, and before our understanding. For love for God is not proven by words alone, but by obedience and submission to His will.

    When we place God’s will above ourselves, we do not lose life, but we find it. Not because God seeks to control us, but because He calls us to trust Him and to depend on Him. The Lord invites us to acknowledge Him in all our ways and to seek His counsel before we take our steps. God desires to walk with us in every part of our lives, for apart from Him we can do nothing.

    This truth remains certain: the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. He formed us and understands the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. He knows what will bring us true joy and the desires He has placed within us, free from the noise of the world and the desires of the flesh. When we commit our way to the Lord, we do not lose ourselves. We are led into the life for which we were created. As it is written, “Those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them.”


  • Romans 8:2

    For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. – Romans 8:2

    Law is very important in our lives because it sets boundaries for us to follow. These boundaries help keep order and protect us from harm. When we cross those boundaries, there are always consequences. In school, we learn about the difference between a law and a theory. A theory explains why or how something happens, but it hasn’t been completely proven as absolute truth. A law, on the other hand, is something that has been tested and proven to always be true. Consider the law of gravity, whatever goes up must come down. We can’t go against gravity because it’s a natural force that never stops working. It doesn’t turn off, and it affects people, water, rocks, and even the air.

    Now we kind of have an idea of what law means. Once a law is established, we cannot go against it or escape it, just like the law of gravity. Paul used the word law in Greek, nomos, which means anything established, received by usage, a custom, a law, or a command. This is very similar to how we understand the word “law” today.

    God gave us His laws not to harm or restrict us, but to set boundaries that guide and protect us. A law is not something that is forced upon us. Every law that exists is not fully enforced by force; rather, it is set in place to keep things in order. In the same way, gravity is not forced on anyone, yet it is always working. When we choose to cross those boundaries, there will always be consequences that follow.

    I expounded on Romans 8:1, where Paul says that those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned. But this raises an important question, what about those who are not in Christ? Why are they condemned?

    To understand this, we have to go back to the very beginning. In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam a clear command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That command was spoken, and every word that comes from God is a law, because He is the King, the Lord, and God Himself.

    God gave Adam a clear command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That command was the law, a boundary that God set for Adam. Just like the laws of nature or the laws of physics, God’s law was established, not enforced. It was created to bring order, not to take away the human right to choose. Laws exist to keep things in order, but they don’t remove our right to choose. We still have the freedom to stay within the boundaries that the Ruler has set or to cross them. In the same way, God set His law, but Adam still had the freedom to remain within God’s boundary or to go beyond it.

    Sadly, Adam chose to disobey. The moment he crossed that boundary, sin entered the world, and the result was death. We know that God lives eternally. He is not bound by time or space. Before the fall, Adam also shared in that eternal nature, living in perfect fellowship with God. But when he disobeyed, death awakened within him. He became limited by time and subject to physical death. If Jesus had not come and died for our sins, humanity would have remained completely separated from God, and we all would have faced the same end — eternal separation from God. This separation is what we refer to as eternal damnation. This is what Paul describes as “the law of sin and death.” It means that whenever God’s law is broken, sin takes place, and the result of sin is death. As Scripture declares, “For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)

    Now, praise be to God in the highest, who sent our Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross and rise again, paying the price for our sins and destroying the power of sin and death. As it is written: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

    Through His sacrifice, Jesus broke the wall of enmity and reconciled us back to our Heavenly Father.

    “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.” (Ephesians 2:14)

    “And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)

    This is what Paul meant when he spoke of “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Through Christ, we have received a new law that gives life, freedom, and fellowship with God. This is the fulfillment of God’s promise of a new covenant, not written on tablets of stone but written on the hearts of His people by the Holy Spirit.

    “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Hebrews 10:16–17

    The law condemns us because we are guilty of our sin, that produces death within us. But the new law, the law of the Spirit gives us life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

    Now, why does the law of the Spirit give life? From the very beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Bible says, “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.” Then the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Why did the Holy Spirit move first upon the earth? Because the Spirit always gives life. The moment the Spirit moved, creation began to take form, light came, order appeared, and life released into the earth that was once empty and dark.

    When God created Adam, He formed him from the dust of the ground, but Adam did not live until God breathed into him. The Bible says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) That breath came from God Himself , His Spirit that brought Adam to life. So from the beginning, the Holy Spirit has always been the giver of life.

    Then, after His resurrection, Jesus repeated this same act of creation. He breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22). God, manifested in the flesh through our Lord Jesus Christ, demonstrated this same act of creation that once gave Adam a living soul. But now, through Christ, He breathes into us a life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). The soul can be bound by sin, as we see throughout Scripture, but the Holy Spirit cannot be touched by sin, for there is no unrighteousness in Him. He is the very Spirit of God. 

    Before Jesus accomplished His task when He died on the cross, He introduced the Holy Spirit to the disciples, with whom they would have fellowship after His departure. He said, “I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth.” Then He said, the Helper, the one I will send to you, is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in Jesus name. (John 14:16–17, 26). Because sin is already washed away in us when we receive Jesus, the Holy Spirit can now dwell in us. When we receive the Holy Spirit, He will teach us all things about God and help us understand spiritual things, for who can search the mind of God but His Spirit? (1 Corinthians 2:11). He will also bring to our remembrance all the words of the Lord Jesus. No wonder the disciples were able to recall every detail of the Lord’s life, from His birth to His death for it was absolutely the work of the Holy Spirit.

    What the LORD Jesus did on the cross paid the full penalty for our sins, breaking the separation between us and God. Break us free from the power of satan over our lives, yet the nature of our flesh still lingers in us because all it knows is to commit sin, as it has done for thousands of years. Now, the Holy Spirit was sent to give us power to conquer the routine of our flesh. The nature of our flesh can no longer rule over us because the power of the Holy Spirit now gives life to our whole being. We are no longer slaves to sin, for Jesus has set us free. We now walk in the Spirit who gives life.

    Just as He did in the beginning, when the earth was without form, void, and dark such a great description of our lives but when He hovers, light begins to shine in us. Regeneration and transformation begin. Life begins not only in our earthly bodies for He will change our corruptible bodies into incorruptible ones, into glorious bodies like the body of Christ at the appointed time. (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:53).

    Now, why do birds and planes seem to break free from the law of gravity? They don’t actually defeat gravity, it’s still working. The law is still there and active, but for those who are in Christ, there is no more condemnation, for Jesus has already received the judgment on our behalf. So, just as gravity no longer has power over a bird in flight, the law of sin and death no longer has power over us.

    What birds and planes do is use another law that works alongside gravity just as the law of the Spirit gives life to us. Birds and airplanes use their wings to push air downward, creating an upward force called lift that overcomes gravity. In the same way, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we overcome the works of the flesh. As long as lift is stronger than gravity, birds and planes can fly. As long as we walk in the Spirit, there is freedom, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

    But the moment a bird or a plane stops creating lift, when its engine fails or its wings are damaged gravity takes over and it begins to fall. That fall leads to destruction, just as many lives are lost when a plane crashes or a bird dies in the fall. The same is true in our spiritual lives. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us, given to help us overcome sin and death, yet He will not force Himself upon anyone. When we grieve or quench the Spirit, His presence remains with us, but we begin to drift away from His leading. Our hearts grow dull, His voice becomes distant, and soon we begin to fall.

    The moment we stop walking in the Spirit, the pull of the flesh takes over just as gravity pulls everything down. But when we yield to the Spirit, He lifts us above the weight of sin and restores our strength. For as the Scripture says, “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31). For when we walk in the Spirit, we rise above the pull of sin and death, living in the freedom and power that Christ has given us. Amen!