Lose to Find

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 81, Lose to Find.

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

Let that land for a moment. Don't rush past it. Because Jesus is saying something that runs against everything we've been trained to do since we were young — hold on, protect yourself, secure your future. He's saying: the math of the Kingdom runs backwards. The equation doesn't work the way ours does.

Hoarding your life spends it. Spending it for Christ saves it. It's upside down. It's always upside down.

And I know that stirs something in you. Because we spend our whole lives building a version of ourselves that has to be protected. A plan that cannot fail. A future that has to stay in our hands. A person we grip so tightly our knuckles ache. And the harder we grip, the more we suffocate. What you refuse to release — you end up losing anyway. Only you lose it without having gained anything in return.

But look closely at what Jesus said. He is not praising loss for its own sake. He is not asking you to throw your life away for the sake of throwing it away. The key is in three words: "for my sake." The losing that finds is a losing aimed at Him. Entrusted to Him. This isn't giving up — it's surrender. It's placing what you have into hands that can do what you never could on your own.

Think of a seed. When it goes into the ground, it isn't wasted — it's planted. What looks like loss is the beginning of a multiplication your eyes can't see yet. A life released into God's hands doesn't disappear. It grows.

And the life waiting for you on the other side of surrender is not a smaller life. It's not a diminished, resigned version of someone who gave everything up. It is the life you were made for. The one that has been waiting for you while you held on too tightly to find it.

I am not talking about something easy. I am talking about the hardest movement there is — opening your hand. But it is the movement Jesus calls finding.

So today, do this: take a piece of paper — right now, before breakfast — and write down the one thing you grip the hardest. It might be a plan you can't let go of. It might be a fear you've been carrying in silence. It might be a person you try to control because you love them so much. Write it down. By name, with honesty, with full weight. And then pray. Pray it into God's hands — not like someone throwing something away, but like someone planting a seed. Like someone who trusts. Like someone who believes He can do more with what's in His hand than you ever could by holding on.

Open one hand. Just one. Today.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.