God Loves Losers (So Don't Be Afraid to Lose It All)

The world's definition of success is to "make it."

Make it big, make it out for yourself, make it on your own, with everyone watching and adoring you "make it".

Abraham left country, kith, and kin to follow the Word of the Lord. (cf Genesis 12). One could say that he lost everything; but God rewarded him with a beautiful through his gracious wife. Through Abraham, God promised to bless all the nations of the world.

Joseph dreamed great dreams, that his family would all bow down to him. It did not start out that way. His brothers, in fury with jealousy, dispossessed their brother, faking his death and selling him into slavery.

Though rising to prominence in the house of his master Potiphar, Joseph was again betrayed, that time by a lecherous, frustrated housewife. In prison, he once again rose to prominence, overseeing the entire prison. After he interpreted the dreams for two of Pharaoh's disgraced servants, the one restored forgot all about Joseph. Yet in the fullness of time, Pharaoh summoned Joseph to interpret his dreams, then appointed him the Second in the Kingdom.

David the Shepherd King and his band of followers were considered "losers." They were a marauding band, disenfranchised people who has lost in every venture. Yet when they stuck with the shepherd boy, despised and rejected by his own brothers, they were promoted into the ranks of the greatest king of Israel.

David was anointed king, but he had to press against obstacles and conniving kings for seven years. At one point, he so despaired of being free, that he settled with the Philistines, harassing the nation of Israel with the enemies of God's people.

Yet who can compare to Jesus Christ Himself, who gave up His divinity to become one amolng His creation, bringing grace and truth to redeem falled man from the curse of the law, so that His creation could be one with Him. Having performed miracles and healing the sick, the people proclaimed Him Messiah, then within one week the crowds turned on Him, the One whom they though would restore the political Israel. Jesus gave up everything, suffering every indignity, shame, harm, and open humiliation, taking upon Himself the wrath of His righteous Father for the sin of mankind.

He gave up everything that every believer who trusted in Him for life and salvation would be blessed and made rich. If we are the apple of His eye, therefore, we do not faer the reproach of men, and we curse the folly of man's ill repute.

Where He has honored us, we therefore scorn the shame of man.

Paul wrote it best:

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

And

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Romans 8:37)

We lose ourselves in Christ:

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3)

Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the same unity which Jesus prayed for in the Garden of Gethsemane:

"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." ( John 17:21)

So when Jesus tells us to give up all, we are not losers at all, but the greatest of winners:

"Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee." (Luke 18:28)

To which Jesus answers:

"And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake,

"Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting. " (Luke 18:19-20)

Losers? In Christ, we are winners who have everything secured for us in Christ!