Greater Sacrifice | Day 19

Podcast Intro [00:00:00]:
Are you experiencing greater things in this season? We want to hear about it. Share your story at transformation at soul citychurch.com.

Host [00:00:10]:
Welcome to the Greater Things daily devotional where we're asking the question, God, what is the greater thing that you wanna do in me and through me? Wherever you are, I invite you to quiet your soul and pray this ancient prayer after me. Come, Holy Spirit. This week, we're meditating on greater sacrifice and what that might look like for us in our lives. Today's devotional comes out of Luke chapter 9 verses 23 through 24. It says, then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Growing up, I had this friend named Jose, and Jose was just cool. You know those people who ooze cool? I know most of you are probably thinking, yeah, Pastor John at Soul City.

Host [00:01:34]:
No. I'm talking about someone even more cool than that. Jose was one of those people who was just, all caps, cool. And one of the things that made Jose so cool was how he dressed. Now, I know that 13 year old boys are not normally thought of as fashion icons, but Jose was, at least for me. This was the early 2000s when really sarcastic t shirts were really popular. You know the ones that said things like, there's no need to repeat yourself, I ignored you the first time, or of course I talk to myself, Sometimes I need expert advice. Now these might not sound like high fashion to you, but to 7th grade me, it was basically Gucci.

Host [00:02:18]:
And Jose had all the shirts. One of my favorite ones that he had was this really simple hoodie that just said I'm a loser on the front. Now, obviously, at 13, I thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. But it wasn't until a couple years later that I actually started to understand what the hoodie meant. One day, I was standing behind Jose in the lunch line, and I noticed on the back of that hoodie, it had a Bible verse, and it was the verse that we just read in Luke 9, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me, will save it. And that's when I understood I'm a loser on the front of Jose's hoodie. It wasn't a self deprecating insult, It was actually a self sacrificial claim.

Host [00:03:19]:
Okay. Maybe I didn't fully understand all of that right there in 7th grade, but I do understand it more now. See, this invitation from Jesus in Luke 9, like many of the invitations from Jesus, and just like Jose's hoodie, it is purposefully provocative. By telling us to take up our cross, a weapon of torture, and to lose our lives, Jesus is actually trying to shock us in order to get our attention. But just because he's using a metaphor doesn't mean that he's exaggerating. A few weeks ago, we celebrated Good Friday. This is a time where we remember when Jesus carried the cross and gave his life. But something we often misunderstand is that Jesus didn't just take up the cross and lay down his life as a sacrifice for humanity, but Jesus also did this as an example to humanity of the kind of life we are called to live.

Host [00:04:20]:
When we say yes to being a follower of Jesus, our invitation is to lay down our old lives, to lay down our old ways, our old habits and patterns, and to take up a new life that God offers us in Jesus. This is another way of describing the process of transformation. Transformation, by definition, requires us to leave the old so that we can take hold of the new. See, if we refuse to die to our old self, then we simply don't have room to live the new life that God desires for us. That's why Jesus calls us to be losers. The invitation from Jesus is to give up, to sacrifice our life, to leave behind our ways of thinking, and speaking, and moving in the world so that we can step into the life that God desires and designed us to live, which ultimately is always a life of greater things. So today, I wonder what it might look like for you to leave behind the old so that you can take hold of the new. I wonder if maybe there's a habit that God is inviting you to lose.

Host [00:05:36]:
Maybe there's bitterness in a relationship that you've been carrying around. Even old ways of thinking about who God is or how God operates. Where is Jesus maybe inviting you to be a loser, to die to the old life, so that once again, you can take hold of the new life that He has for you. Now I invite you to repeat this prayer after me. Father, I pause and welcome more of you. I slowly breathe in and breathe out to be fully present with you in this moment. Jesus, I thank you for your example of sacrifice. Thank you for laying down your life so that I could experience life and life to the full.

Host [00:06:45]:
Help me, Holy Spirit. Help me to leave behind my old ways. Help me to die to my old habits. Help me to lose my old patterns. Help me become a loser. And help me then to step in, to step into the promise of new life that You have for me on the other side of death.