“I died to the Law”. Paul’s expression means that I cannot be alive if Moses’ Law was still active. I die to “live for God” in Christ’s power as if I was with Christ when He was crucified. I was with Him, hanging on the cross on which Christ became alive. My unity with Him made Him alive in me.
How could that happen? I should live my life on this earth “by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. Lord Jesus dwelled in me through His death and resurrection, and this is the source of my faith in Him. He has become everything for me.
However, for this dwelling to continue, I must make an effort. Salvation descends on me from God and I must preserve it with obedience. I must accept it. Therefore, today’s Gospel said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. If you were a real believer and baptized, you would indicate that you want to follow the Master. He wants to bring his followers to Himself. This doesn’t simply happen through verbal confession but requires man to atone himself, i.e. to stay away from every earthly interest and the authority of his ego, and to ask for Christ’s authority. This is self-atonement and confessing that the Lord has the only authority over the self. If you have accepted Jesus’ teachings, you would be admitting that you want Him to revive you through the Gospel because He is the word of life and the bread descending from above.
After leaving your earthly interests and the pleasures of the world, the Cross would appear in front of you, i.e. the discomforts of life, temptations and doubts. Jesus asks you to carry all these burdens to be able to follow Him. Follow Him to where? He walked towards Golgotha where He met His cross which is the discomforts of the whole world. If you carried your own pains through the tolerance of saints, you would be joining Him in Golgotha and dying and rising with Him. You do not have any other path than Him which He passed towards resurrection. You shall also pass from your path towards your resurrection i.e. to the joy that descends on you from the Holy Spirit.
After that, the Lord says: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it”. This means that you should exert your soul through the efforts that He asks from you. You do all the efforts and not some of them. You do this for Him and for the Gospel i.e. for the Gospel’s effectiveness to appear in you and be transmitted to people so that His light appears in everything they do.
Then, the Master makes His words clearer by saying: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” If a person gained all the money of the world and all the power and authority in it, and his soul became a place for the evil one because of that, he would be getting no good from what he gained.
The aim is for God to gain your soul through the holiness that He wants in you and which you should love, because if you didn’t love holiness, you would necessarily be a sin lover. Holiness and sin cannot be found in the same heart at the same time.
Jesus wants all your powers, gifts and works to be only for His glory. You do not let yourself appear but let Christ’s light appear on your face so that people would come to their Christ and be saved.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “الوحدة مع المسيح” –Raiati 38- 16.09.2012
