For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?
According to recent news reports, Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world. But he seems strangely unimpressed. In fact, he’s spending half of his fortune building a city on Mars, just in case, the world is destroyed. Jesus warns us about caring so much for this world that we lose ourselves in the process. Instead, we are to give ourselves to Jesus – all that we are – so that we might receive the riches of his grace and fulness of his life.
A recent headline caught my attention: “Elon Musk becomes world’s richest person as wealth tops $185bn.” And just when I had gotten used to thinking of Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person! As it turns out, Tesla's stock value has increased dramatically in recent days, propelling Musk (founder of Tesla) ahead of Bezos (founder of Amazon). I was rather amused, maybe even impressed by Musk’s response to the news of his material prominence. When Twitter announced that Musk was now the world’s wealthiest person, he tweeted, “How strange.” Followed by, “Well, back to work . . . .”
Elon Musk is an unusual person, to say the least. Though he is wealthy beyond what any of us might imagine, he is curiously uninterested in “gaining the whole world.” In fact, he is not sure the world is going to be around for much longer. Musk is spending half of his fortune to establishing “a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure the continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor-like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves.”
Ironically, both Elon Musk and Jesus are less than enthusiastic about “gaining the whole world,” though in different ways. For Musk, the problem lies in the fact that the world might be destroyed someday. For Jesus, the problem with gaining the whole world is what you give up in return. Jesus said, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” (Luke 9:24-25). If we seek only for success in this world, if we desire only to save and enrich our earthly life, then we will lose our life. Even if we remain physically alive, we will lose our inner life, our eternal life.
What ought we to strive for if not for earthy life and financial gain? Jesus said those who want to follow him should “deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). He suggested that we must not be “ashamed” of him and his words (Luke 9:26). Rather than seeking our own benefit, we should seek instead to give our whole life to following Jesus, to being devoted to him and his teachings.
Elsewhere, Jesus urged us to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). The top priority of our life should be to live intentionally each day with God as the ruler of our lives. We should seek God’s ways in all that we do, offering all we are to God and his purposes. Yes, in a sense we are giving up our lives to Jesus. But, in the process, we are receiving his life in return, abundant life, life as God intended it to be, both in this age and in the age to come.
When that happens, we become immeasurably rich, not in dollars, but in God. We have confident hope in “the riches of [God’s] glorious inheritance among the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). Though we begin to experience God’s grace right now, we look forward to the time when God will “show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Elon Musk is worth only $185 billion these days. Nobody can even measure just how rich you are in Jesus Christ.
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