Devotion of the Day

Lost and Found

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
Matthew 10:39

Most of us are out to succeed, to achieve our own ends, to accomplish our own goals and aims. But God operates a Lost and Found Department, wherein a man loses himself in Another, exchanges self-realization for Christ-realization. It takes out all the fever and strain, the mad drive to reach some goal this crazy world has set, or some mark we have put up for ourselves. Today millions crack up in this insane scramble, but the man who lives for Christ’s sake finds by losing what others lose forever trying to find.

You will observe that Jesus said, “He that loseth his life for my sake.” Never forget that qualification. That rules out mere altruism and idealism. Martyrs in scientific research, men who lose themselves in music or art or medicine, soldiers on battlefields, do not necessarily come into this category. We must lose ourselves for His sake. Not even for religion’s sake – for His sake. We are inclined to take in too much territory here.

God’s “Lost and Found” operates “for Christ’s sake.”

Quote of the Day

Our Lord would have been the despair of any modern publicity agent. The first thirty years of His life are hidden in almost complete silence. Often, when He performed a miracle, He requested that it not be publicized. The private instruction of His disciples was largely in the mystery teaching of parables-not heavenly stories with an earth meaning, as they are often described, but a form of teaching designed to hide the truth from those for whom it was not intended while revealing it to those for whom it was meant. Our Lord=s brothers wanted Him to go up to Jerusalem where He would be noticed, but He want up secretly. The transfiguration was not revealed to a crowd and the Last Supper was hidden from the public. What a time the high-pressure image-makers would have had getting my Lord into the spotlight!

And what shall we say of the greatest event of all, the resurrection? That would have made the greatest publicity extravaganza of all time. Why didn’t the risen Saviour appear before Herod and Caiaphas and Pilate and preach in Jerusalem? Josephus could have written it up. It would have accomplished in an instant what we have labored for centuries to prove-and the world doesn=t believe it yet. But He appeared only to His Disciples. Nobody but believers saw Him. This world never had a glimpse of Him. To this day true Christians are a secret order in a blatant, noisy world. The greatest secret of all time has been confided to use. We have paganized Easter as though anybody could crash in on the resurrection. And yet it is not a secret to be hidden, but a story to be heralded. We can enter into the experience of it, live in the power of it, anticipate the complete fulfillment of it, and in the meantime spread the good news of it. Festus described Paul=s ministry as being concerned with “one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive” (Acts 25:19). That is it! A secret to possess, a story to proclaim, and above all, Someone to present. For He is the Resurrection and the Life.