Winners And Losers

Winners And Losers

Bible: Matthew 19:16-30

Many who are first will be last (V.30).

Reading

For me, the most incredible moment of the 2018 Winter Olympics was when the Czech Republic’s world champion snowboarder Ester Ledecká won an event in a completely different sport: skiing!

Amazingly, Ledecká qualified to race the women’s super-G—an event that combines downhill skiing with a slalom course. After she won by 0.01 of a second on borrowed skis, the cameras showed she was just as shocked as everyone else who had assumed the winner would be one of the top skiers in the sport.

This is how the world works. We think the winners will keep winning while all the others will lose. It was a surprise, then, when Jesus’ followers heard Him say how “hard [it is] for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (MATTHEW 19:23). Jesus turned everything upside down. How could being rich (in other words, ‘winning’ in life) stop people getting to heaven? If we trust in what we have (what we can do, who we are), then it’s much more difficult for us to trust Jesus. And it is only by trusting our lives to Jesus that we can enter His home after we die.

The kingdom of God doesn’t play by our rules. “Many who are first,” Jesus says, “will be last, and many who are last will be first” (V.30). Whether you feel first or last in your school, sports and among your friends, the only thing that truly counts is that we belong to Jesus.

WINNING AND LOSING ARE UPSIDE DOWN IN GOD’S VIEW.

Youth Edition – Our Daily Bread Ministries