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Follower of One : Missions For The Rest Of Us


A show for marketplace Christians to energize and encourage you to live out your faith every day, right where you are. Begin your day with Christ-centered ideas to share your joy with those around you. Add in weekly interviews with other like-minded Christians so you can share in their joy and learn how they make Jesus visible in their workplace every day.

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Jul 1, 2022

When we talk about life, which one are we talking about? Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast. We've spent a few days talking about Matthew 16:24-25. Today, I want to add verse 26. I'll read the complete passage, and today I'm reading from the English Standard Version. "Then Jesus told his disciples 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 will find it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?"

 

I think these verses are pretty well known. Many of us have heard them before. And if you were listening the last few days, we started talking about Jesus' commands to follow Him. And then we continued with verse 25, yesterday's episode, about losing our life, or gaining it, finding it. And then today I have to ask the question about life because you see the word translated life in verse 25 is the same Greek word that's translated soul in verse 26. I don't know why the translators did that, but I think oftentimes it's hard for us to remember that there are two lives going on. When we're born, we're born into a temporal life and it has a definite end. There's some time in the future when it will end, all of us have experienced that death, or we will. It's one of those things. It's not fun to talk about, and most of us try and act like it's not going to happen, but it does. It happens to each one of us. There's another life that can never end. And that life, I believe we also live, and that life will never end, but the latter parts of it may be really bad for some of us and the rest of the latter years, the eternal life, will be very good for many of us.

 

I think Jesus is making a point here in verse 26, that if we gain the whole world, if we get everything that we wanted, if I do everything on my to-do list from yesterday's conversation, if I do accomplish all my goals and all my objectives and everything else, and still don't get to take part in that eternal life, that is the joy and life that I get to spend with Jesus, then I've lost everything. And I believe the reminder for us today as Marketplace Christians is to remember that our words and our actions and the way that we live can give life to others. That's our job, I believe as followers of Jesus. Our job is to live in such a way that other people see and are reminded about the second life. About that life that will never end that we get to spend with Jesus forever.

 

I don't think that life begins when we die. I read a book called "Eternity is Now in Session" by John Ortberg, and I agree very much with the teaching of that book, and that's some of where I got my opinions. So you can check that book out. But it suggests that our eternity begins the day that we're saved. We begin to live this life that we experience when we're with and following Jesus. And that life is what we have to give away, to show other people. That's our job as ministers is to make that second life visible to the rest of the world.

 

I wanna encourage you today as a follower of Jesus Christ - let your light shine. Let that second life be visible through your actions and the way that you give away your first life. By taking extra time for people, by being generous, by sharing, and by blessing others. We can live in such a way that we attract other people to wonder about that second life.

 

And I believe this passage points that out for us. It will not profit us if we gain the whole world and we lose that second life. So let's live in such a way that we challenge the people around us. Thanks so much for being a Marketplace Minister, and thanks for following Jesus Christ. Let's give our life away so that we can follow Jesus and make Him visible to the people around us. And also consider joining us at https://community.Followerofone.org where we try and help one another, do these very things every day.

 

Thanks very much.