Through the cross, Jesus asks us to give up our own lives, in exchange for His. That includes giving up our own power to make a name for ourselves, to live a life worth remembering. That even includes giving up trying to live our own life for God, which is perhaps the most subtle and deadly way of holding on to our own life. But our own life must be lost, as Jesus said:
"...he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:38-39)
Yet losing ourselves as Jesus asks does not mean we lose our personality or individuality; it is not a form of nihilism or cosmic absorption. Rather, losing ourselves means losing the dead life and dead personality which pretend to be what we are. Our old human nature pretends to be us; yet in our own sight, the old nature is all that we can see of ourselves. It seems to be what we are; but it can never be more than the palest imitation of what we truly are. It is nothing pretending to be something; and in losing our old nature, we only lose the vanity and nothing that it was.
"For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:7)
What do we find, then, when we lose what seems to be ourselves and die, every day, for the sake of Jesus? When we in faith give up our own life, and our own story, and our own name, we will find through faith that Jesus has given us His life, and His story, and His name- to be our own. God does not want us to live our old lives for Him; He wants us to live His new life with Him. He gave us Himself; and in so doing He gave each of us a great and wonderful story- a testimony of Him- to be our own.
Thus we are made One with Him, and thus we will find a place in His story.
"Remember me, O my God, for good." (Nehemiah 13:31b)
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