What Does It Mean to Lose Your Life to Save It?
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”
— Mark 8:35 (ESV)
What are we really trying to save?
Our comfort? Our reputation? Our plans? Our success? The life we have imagined for ourselves?
Jesus makes a striking statement in Mark 8:35: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” At first, His words can seem contradictory. How can we possibly save our lives by losing them?
Yet when we consider His words in the context of the entire passage, Jesus is confronting something very important about what it means to be His disciple. He is asking us to consider what we value, what we pursue, what we are trying so desperately to preserve, and ultimately, whether following Him is more valuable to us than gaining what the world has to offer.
In our previous article, we looked at the implications of Jesus' invitation to come after Him—to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Now we turn our attention to the warning that immediately follows that invitation and the extraordinary promise contained within it.
Read and Pray
As we grow in our faith, we must be willing to examine whether our confessional theology—what we say we believe—and our functional theology—how we actually live—are aligned with the Word of God. There can be a significant difference between professing that Jesus is Lord and allowing that truth to shape our priorities, decisions, ambitions, relationships, and pursuits.
This is why we need the Holy Spirit to reveal the places in our lives where what we profess and how we live may not fully agree.
Jesus says in Mark 8:34–38:
“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’”
— Mark 8:34–38 (ESV)
There is tremendous depth in these words, but there is also a sobering simplicity. Jesus is placing before us two very different ways of approaching life. We can spend our lives trying to preserve what we believe will satisfy, secure, or establish us, or we can surrender our lives to Him and discover that true life is found in Christ.
Before going any further, consider a few questions: If I believe in Christ, am I truly following Christ? How do I define success? What occupies my thoughts most often? What am I pursuing most intensely? And perhaps most revealing of all, what am I most afraid of losing?
Reflect and Meditate
Let's first be clear about what Jesus means when He speaks about “losing” our lives. He is not telling us to seek death, suffering, or martyrdom for its own sake. Jesus values life. This losing is not aimless, reckless, or purposeless. Rather, it is connected directly to His invitation to come after Him. There may certainly be sacrifice, opposition, suffering, or loss as a result of following Christ and living for the sake of the Gospel, but suffering itself is not the goal.
The issue Jesus is addressing goes much deeper.
He says, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?”
Those words help us understand what Jesus means when He speaks of trying to “save” our lives. He is confronting our tendency to hold tightly to the life we want while pursuing what we believe will make that life valuable, comfortable, secure, or successful.
This forces us to ask an uncomfortable question: What are we trying so hard to gain—or preserve—that we would be unwilling to surrender it in order to follow Christ?
“The world” can offer us many things that appear valuable. Success, recognition, possessions, influence, comfort, approval, achievement, opportunity, and control can all become powerful pursuits. None of these things is necessarily wrong in itself. Working hard is not wrong. Building something meaningful is not wrong. Providing for our families, developing our abilities, pursuing excellence, and accomplishing worthwhile things are not wrong.
The danger is found in what begins to happen within the heart.
Our old self is easily drawn toward a way of living fueled by pride, competitiveness, self-centered ambition, recognition, and the desire to establish our own significance. We can even pursue good things for the wrong reasons. What begins as diligence can quietly become identity. What begins as provision can become accumulation. What begins as influence can become the need for recognition. What begins as responsibility can become control.
This is why examining our functional theology is so important. We may confess that Christ is enough while living as though something else is necessary to make us complete. We may say that our identity is found in Him while becoming devastated when our reputation is threatened. We may say that we trust God while refusing to release control of our plans. We may say that His will matters most while continually arranging our lives around our own comfort.
Jesus' words invite us to look beneath our behavior and examine the motivation of our hearts.
Are we pursuing something because God has called us to it, or because we need it to tell us who we are? Are we willing to obey Christ when obedience costs us comfort, recognition, opportunity, or approval? If God asked us to release something we deeply value, would our love for Him be greater than our desire to keep it?
This is where we need the wisdom and discernment of the Holy Spirit. We do not always recognize what has captured our hearts. David's prayer in Psalm 139:23–24 gives us a beautiful posture to bring before the Lord: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
We need God to show us what we cannot—or sometimes do not want to—see in ourselves.
When Jesus calls us to lose our lives for His sake and the Gospel, He is inviting us into a life of surrender. We cannot save our own souls; salvation is found in Christ Jesus. As we deny ourselves and follow Him, we begin releasing the world's definitions of identity, security, significance, and success because Christ increasingly becomes more valuable to us.
This does not make our lives meaningless. Quite the opposite. Surrendering our lives to Christ means that our lives find their proper meaning in Him. Our plans, ambitions, desires, reputation, comfort, resources, relationships, and even our understanding of success are placed before Him. Instead of simply asking, “What do I want to do with my life?” we begin asking, “Lord, what do You desire to do with the life You have given me?”
That is a radically different way to live.
And this is where the warning of Mark 8 also becomes an incredible promise. Jesus says that “whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” What appears to the world as loss becomes gain because what we receive in Christ is infinitely greater than anything we could preserve for ourselves.
Jesus speaks of this life in John 5:24 when He says that whoever hears His Word and believes in the One who sent Him “has eternal life.” Then, in John 17:3, He gives us an extraordinary description of eternal life: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Eternal life certainly speaks to life that does not end, but Jesus also points us toward its relational reality: eternal life is knowing God. It is life found in relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ.
That means eternal life is not merely something followers of Jesus wait to experience after death. Through Christ, we begin knowing God now. We experience His presence and His transforming work in us. We are being formed into the likeness of Christ and learning to live according to a kingdom very different from the one around us.
When we understand this, Jesus' question becomes even more powerful: What does it profit us to gain the whole world and forfeit our soul?
What could the world possibly give us in exchange for knowing Christ?
Success cannot replace Him. Comfort cannot replace Him. Recognition cannot replace Him. Possessions cannot replace Him. Influence cannot replace Him. Even if we could gain everything this world has to offer, it would be a devastating exchange if, in gaining it, we rejected the One in whom true life is found.
Perhaps this is why one of the most revealing questions we can ask ourselves is not simply, “Do I believe in Jesus?”but “What am I unwilling to surrender in order to follow Him?”
Sometimes we do not recognize what has captured our hearts until following Jesus threatens our ability to keep it. It is in those moments that surrender becomes very real.
Jesus is not inviting us into a smaller, emptier life. He is inviting us to stop spending our lives desperately trying to preserve things that can never save us. He offers us something infinitely greater—Himself.
And when Christ becomes our treasure, we begin to understand the beautiful paradox of Mark 8:35. What initially appears to be loss is actually leading us toward life.
Respond and Implement
Take some time with the Lord and prayerfully examine what His words reveal about your own life. How have you defined success, and does that definition align with God's Word? Is there something you are pursuing, protecting, or unwilling to surrender that has become more important than following Christ? Is there an area where your functional theology does not match what you say you believe? What might “losing your life” for the sake of Christ and the Gospel look like practically in this season?
Do not rush to answer. Invite the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Listen to what He reveals. Repent where repentance is needed, surrender what needs to be surrendered, and remember that the One who calls us to follow Him is also the One who gives us the grace and strength to do so.
There is nothing this world can offer that compares with knowing Christ.
— Dane and Paola Hall
Therismos Gospel Project
