Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – which life do I want to live? There are two versions of life, two versions of me, and Jesus comes to bring revelation to me of the difference and to offer and open the way to becoming my true self me.
Luke 9:23-25 NIV
[23] Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. [24] For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. [25] What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Observation
There are two lives I can live, two me’s I can be. The life I create myself, the ego-created self, the self that is shaped by my circumstances, key voices, my trauma, my successes, and the world, it’s a self that is not the true me. Then there is the God-created self, the self that is shaped in his image, the self that I was created to become. Now in order to become my true self I must lose, die to, the false ego self, in order to become alive to my God-self, the divine me. We all start our lives with the ego self, and to lose this life is a choice that God offers us each.
To save me, to save my life, to live from my small self, is actually not living, not living my true self, it is to lose myself in a self that is shaped by the world, a small self, that is not really me anyway. To be a disciple of Jesus, a follower, is an invitation to lose the life I created and to become my true self, my created in his image self. It is to deny the self I have created and to daily walk the way of Jesus into my true self. The small self looks to gain the things, material or approvals of the world, yet it misses the joy and beauty of being truly me. So Jesus poses the question – what is better, being you or gaining the world?
Jesus came to rescue me from me – to himself- to my true self. The process is one of awareness of the false self and denying its desires, dying to its ways, and following Jesus closely. That’s what disciples do. I become me through intimate personal encounters of God herself, in whose image I see myself. I first encounter me in God herself and then I am transformed by the encounter. Discipleship is not a ‘work hard at changing self’ program, it’s a walk close and encounter. It’s about denying, dying and following, all of which happens from the intimacy of personal encounter, following closely, and being a disciple.
Application
I choose to lose the life I have created daily as I follow Jesus intimately into a fuller expression of my true self me. I will not try and save what I have created, I choose to lose that life that I may have true life. I want to be my true self me more than be the me the world would want, demand, and shape me to be. I don’t want to gain the world and lose my true self in the pursuit.
Response
Thank you for rescuing me to me. Thank you that you love both of me and it is your love that enables me to become me. Thank you for the journey, the daily journey, that is becoming my true self me. Thank you for giving me a choice, but you also giving me yourself as the process, the way of becoming me. Thank you that the path to becoming me is not doing my best, but being present to you. I love this process and i love this life of becoming me, I continue to like myself more as I travel this journey.
Meditation
Meditate – whoever loses their life for me will save it.
Consider:
How do you understand discipleship? Is it becoming you?
Are you trying to gain the world while losing self?
JOURNEY DEEPER
