According to the Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary an oxymoron is, “a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect, e.g., “wise fool” or “legal murder”. While I don’t think any of us have truly ever seen a wise fool, although many professors in academia seem to fit the bill, in God’s eyes a fool is simply that, a fool. God does however like the use of a good oxymoron to describe certain situations in life.

In the 12^th chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus is recorded as saying in verse 25 that, “The man who loves his life will lose it”. When I think of that statement I realize that in essence he’s saying that “you have got to lose to win”. Now I don’t know about you but that sounds about as contradictory as it comes to me. How can you win if you lose? The only way that a person could win by losing is if what they originally were striving for would actually be bad for them. For example if someone were predisposed to test the flames and stick their hand into the fire to see what the outcome would be they could actually win by losing and not having their hand burned by what would have been the original doomed outcome. But Jesus is talking about a man’s life and not just his life in the here and now, but his life for all eternity.

So, the man who loves his life will lose it. What is the man (or woman) like who love their life? Because according to Jesus they are the ones who are going to lose their life, so if we can identify these people who love their life perhaps we can warn them of the impending danger of the loss of their life. Jesus said that they love their life so they must have affection for life in general and particularly their own individual life. But that would include a lot of people, in fact I don’t know if I know anyone who that would not include. We all are guilty of having a love affair with ourselves are we not? From the moment we arrived on the scene here on planet earth we’ve been commanding attention and demanding that our own needs be met. I haven’t seen a baby, toddler, or a small child yet, not to mention too many teenagers or even adults who are really concerned about their care givers. They all seem to be concerned about getting cared for so we can definitely conclude then that mankind loves their life can’t we.

You see loving one’s life equates to selfishness, what God in the Bible calls “sin”. This quite simply is our rebellious desire for self and what we want, rather than what the one who made us wants. We have placed our self in the place of command and control of our life. But, Jesus said this will only lead to the loss of our life for eternity. Therefore to win we must lose. We need to lose control and command of our will to God’s control and command for our life. We need to give up the throne of our individual life and allow King Jesus to sit in his rightful place on the throne, the seat of control, of our life. By yielding control, giving up, losing control to Christ we win!

We win not only for time, because we now for the first time in our lives will have the potential and power to be what God originally designed us to be. You and I can for the first time live truly fulfilled lives in harmony with God and his individual plan for each of our lives. But, we also win for eternity! Jesus continued in verse 25 to say, “While the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life”. A life yielding control to God will hate the old selfish, sinful life and thus keep his/her life forever! So you see, you’ve got to lose to win!