Learning to Let Go: Finding Freedom in SurrenderÀpẹrẹ

DAY 1: LOSING MYSELF

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25 ESV

Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi / Ang mamatay nang dahil sa‘yo
(But it is glory ever when thou art wronged / For us, thy sons, to suffer and die).

We’ve sung those lines countless times that they’re ingrained in our minds. But for the thousands of valiant men and women who fought for our country’s freedom, those lines weren’t just in their minds. They’ve lived those words out. They did die. Sacrificially. Willingly. And because they did, they will live on in the history of the Philippines. Who doesn’t know Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Melchora Aquino, and Gabriela Silang?

Their names live on in our memories because of their sacrificial deaths, but there is a Greater Sacrifice that truly leads to Life. In Jesus, death does lead to Life. In Matthew 16, Jesus told His disciples that He was going to suffer and die (v. 21). Peter was so repulsed by the idea that he took Jesus aside and “began to rebuke him” (v. 22). But Jesus answered Peter, correcting him that “whoever would save his life will lose it” (v. 25).

If we want to live, there has to be a dying within–a dying of the will, of the self. It involves a giving up, a losing of one’s self. But why would God want that? If He’s God and He’s got everything, why does He need to take that little “self” we so dearly hold on to? Because only when the “self” is gone can Jesus finally take residence in our lives. In the words of the apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, emphasis added).

So instead of looking at it as losing the “self,” let’s see it as gaining Christ. And with Christ in us, what else could we need or want?

Do you find it difficult to deny yourself? How can you show Jesus that your life isn’t yours anymore, but His?

Father, I often forget that Jesus is the Be-All and End-All of life. Please help me deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus all the days of my life.