What profits a Person to Gain the Whole World?

What Profits a Person to Gain the Whole World and lose his/her soul?

The soul is deemed integral or essential to consciousness and personality.

As I contemplate on this thought, I have to take a look in the mirror at myself. With any evaluation made, one must first perform a self assessment, which equates to self-awareness. Knowing where you stand on a particular subject or how you feel about a particular topic, first requires some soul searching and getting to know SELF. So, I ponder and pray sometimes about the direction God wants me to take; about the decisions God wants me to make; about the work God wants me to do; about the associations God wants me involved in; about the influences God wants me to have on others; about the thoughts God wants me to write; and about the people God wants me to touch; then I pick up my Bible to read and He reveals some of these things that I ponder over. Oftentimes, I may not know where to start, but He leads me to where he wants me to go.

I can proceed in various directions with “gaining the whole world and losing the soul”, but I want to expound in the sense of acquiring material or temporal (temporary) things, which may include money, clothes, cars, status, positions, influence and the like.

Mark 8: 36 states “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” This is just one verse, but the context of this verse comes in the mist of Jesus talking to his disciples and teaching them that He will be rejected by the World and will suffer many things. In essence, there will be a time when making more money will look better than treating people fair; your car will seem unfit to take a widow to the grocery store when he/she can catch the transit to the store; leaving one group of nice and hospitable people to fellowship with another group who wear the latest fashion and drive expensive cars; being mean to one person in front of a group to show that you are the boss; traveling every week to a conference in a larger, well known city, than speaking to the people in your own community. I could go on and on with these examples of what seemingly appear profitable or something that is gained, but I will stop here.

Is there a profit established when the effort to please self has cost more than the benefit? Can you sleep easily at night when the person you did not want to speak to because they were not dressed like the world thinks they should dress lost hope and trust in all people? How would you feel when the person you could have taken to the store to get groceries offers you a sandwich because due to the downturn in the economy, you were no longer needed at your job? What if Jesus had turned around the 4,000 multitudes because He and the disciples wanted to save the seven loaves of bread for themselves? Do you think God would have blessed that bread and allowed it to feed everyone?

Hence, it profits me none if I cannot share what God has blessed me with to assist the sick, the needy, or the children. After all, He gave it in the first place. Is there a profit in having a room full of people who do not feel the compassion Jesus had for the multitudes? Is there a profit in compromising what God instructs us to so that other people will accept you? Now that I have made an assessment in the mirror, I can truly say that Jesus was right when He said that there will be trials and tribulations, but to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Therefore, God wants us to enjoy both spectrums. He wants us to profit, so that His work is done through us. If we just do what He said, then not only will we gain the whole world, but we will not have to compromise ours souls at the same time. If it pleases God, it pleases the soul! That is the GOOD NEWS!

Blessings and Peace,
~LaKenya