“What Does It Benefit?”

I don’t know how I got on my phone to look at reels this morning. Well, no, I do. I clicked on something I thought would be funny and said “just this one.” 5 minutes later, I was asking myself “how did I get down this rabbit hole?” I had just picked up my phone to check on a friend….then went to check on my statuses on social media…then ended up wasting time on reels, however briefly I did so. It got me thinking “What does it benefit a man if he gains the world and yet forfeits his soul?” The things we do for social media all scream “look at me, look what I can do,” and to gain followers and views, it seems we’d do almost anything, forfeiting our souls for some attention, because that is rewarded.

I want my life to count for Christ. I want to be focused on Christ and the Gospel. And if that is what I want, I need to purposefully and intentionally cut things out of my life that will be a hinderance to that path. I don’t need to be scrolling on my phone at all hours, ignoring my duties to Christ and also as a husband and father, nor do I need to be doing whatever it takes to get attention. I need to draw attention to Christ. Jesus died and rose again because my destructive behaviors set me apart from God. I broke God’s laws and deserved death, but through His Son, God offers me life, peace, hope and reconciliation. If I have been brought from death to life, shouldn’t I choose life? Why then am I so enamored with the culture that brings me in to death? I don’t want to gain the whole world. I want Jesus. So that is who I will pursue.

Luke 9:23-27

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:57-62

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Ephesians 2

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.