"If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it."
Jesus often surprises us with seeming contradictions. In this verse, he tells us that to truly live, we must be willing to die to ourselves. Essentially, we need to give up our own selfishness in order to serve God. By doing so we will actually begin to live fully for the first time.
To live fully today, identify one thing in your life that you need to stop doing. Then say a prayer to God asking him to take this from you. Yes, it's difficult to let go, and it can be distressing separating from the comfort of a particular habit. Yet to grab on to Jesus, we often need to release those items we hold on to so tightly.
(New Living Translation; photo credit: Jake Ingle via Unsplash)