Read John 12:1-36
Verse chosen for devotion
25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Reflect
Jesus was saying this when some Greeks (Gentiles) went to seek His audience through the disciples. Jesus was again reminding that the time has come for Him to be glorified (and that the grain of wheat must fall on earth and dies, to bear much fruits - and the fruits are the salvation for you and I). But when He said that we must hate our lives to gain eternal life what was he trying to tell us?
What is your reaction when you read this? How do you interpret Jesus intention in saying this? Is he asking us to hate our lives? Is he telling us to stop enjoying life as it is? Do we stop living our lives now since they mean nothing to us?
Relate
Our baggages or our lives?
Recently in one of my flight overseas I paid attention (I seldom did so) to the safety briefing by the air stewardess. She reminded the passengers during the take off safety briefing to leave the personal belongings behind in unprecedented emergency evacuation. This is necessary as saving the personal belongings may actually result in the passengers losing their lives as this slows and hinders the evacuation process. But very often things inside these personal belongings are very important to us (e.g passports, handphones, or even cash), and hence we would not want to leave them behind. Drawing a simple analogy here - the personal belongings are just like our earthly lives/baggages and the evacuation to safety is the path to eternal life. So which one would you choose? If we put all our attention and priorities on things that we treasure on earth (fame, status, money, pride) we may lose hold of our path to safety (eternity).
How tight do we hold on to our earthly treasures?
Verse 25 also reminds me of how tightly we hold on to our earthly desires and expectations. Very often we expect a lot from ourselves and people around us. We expect to excel in our career, our children to ace their studies, and to have a clean bill of health all the time. We are putting too much stress and pressure in this temporal life of ours, while missing the true purpose of what God has for us. A pastor once told me about the story of a monkey trap. The trap has a hole where the monkey can slip his hand through and grab the food (a banana) placed inside the box as a bait. But when the monkey grabbed the banana he could not retrieve his hand from the box and was stuck. So the moral of the story is that so long as the monkey is not willing to let go of the banana, he will stay trapped. Likewise for us if we were so adamant to hold on to our prized possession, we will not be able to let go and get out of our own bondage.
While we are so busy chasing our dreams we neglect the purpose that God has for us. We are to do good works (Ephesians 2:10), to live in faith (Hebrews 11:6), to do all things to glorify Him (1 Corinthians 10:31). All this in preparation for the eternity that is to come.
So what is the real irony?
We accept Christ as our personal saviour for He is the only way to salvation (John 14:6). We all want to have eternal life and that is the very reason why we have chosen to follow Christ. But we live and love the earthly life, more than what the eternal life has to offer. The bible taught us that where your treasures is there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).
Jesus teaching is a sobering reminder of how we should live our lives - what is important, and when to let go of our earthly things. God did not create us to loathe our own lives. He created everything beautiful so we can enjoy his creations. He also created us for His pleasure (Revelation 4:11) and he yearns to have an everlasting relationship with us (Romans 5:8-11). But if we love the world so much (lust of flesh, the pride of life) then we may lose grip of the real life ahead of us (the kingdom of eternity).
Rest
“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.”
An extract from the Hymn - Blessed Assurance
Alan Wong
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