In our series looking at questions God asks us, we looked at Mark 8:34-38 where Jesus asked His disciples two challenging questions:
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What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
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What can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
In these verses, Jesus addressed those who wanted to be His disciple and spelled out for them the challenges of discipleship, which involved self-denial and living life on God’s terms, with God in the driving seat. We cannot expect following Jesus to be all miracles and ‘wow’ moments; we must be prepared for the suffering, opposition and persecution. The gospel way is one of paradox where to find life, we must be prepared to lose it; we have to understand that God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom and His weakness stronger than our strength. (1 Cor 1:18-25) Jesus forced His disciples to consider the soul, to understand that there is so much more to life than the physical, material world which dominates our thinking.
We may have everything the world offers – money, houses, cars, possessions, fame, celebrity and so on – but if we have not attended to our souls, to the part of us that money can’t buy, then we have failed to understand the meaning of life. If we forfeit something, we lose it. We can’t live in the here and now as if the here and now is all there is, without subsequently suffering loss. Moreover, His second question (‘what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?’ Mark 8:37) underlines this point. You can’t buy salvation. You can’t pay for the gift of eternal life. You can’t barter for the gift of the Holy Spirit. You can’t earn spiritual gifts with physical goods. No amount of financial giving to God’s work or hard work for God can ‘buy’ God’s favour.
To be a disciple of Jesus means that we put God first in everything. We don’t compartmentalise our lives; we don’t relegate God to the times we attend church services, but let Him into every area of our lives. When we understand the radical nature of discipleship, the consequences are amazing – those timid disciples who struggled to understand the teaching of Jesus before His death and resurrection became fearless witnesses to Him afterwards through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to be the same: radical, fervent, full of zeal, full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith and putting God’s will above our own. Nothing less will do in our discipleship.
