Losing Your Life to Save It

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Emma Judkins, and I am currently a senior at Oral Roberts University majoring in Ministry and Leadership with a concentration in Evangelism and Outreach. I will graduate in the fall of this year and am so excited to see what the Lord has planned! This week, the Lord put it on my heart to share some of my testimony, specifically regarding giving up my plan to follow the Lord’s. I pray as you read this you feel encouraged to pursue what God is calling you to wholeheartedly!

In high school, I thought I had the entirety of my life planned out. My stubbornness to stick to my plan rather than God’s plan led me to the University of Oklahoma during my first year of college. The entirety of that first year of college was the hardest year I had ever been through. Not only was I surrounded by a secular university, which was a challenge, but in addition, the Lord was not my priority. I was more willing to hold onto the idea of what I wanted my life to look like so I would not lose anything here and now rather than surrendering to the Lord and gaining everything in Him. Through that challenging year, the Lord brought me to a place where my only choice was to surrender everything to Him and fully devote my life to His plan for my life. As a result, I transferred schools, changed my major to study ministry, and, in the process, learned what it meant to lose my life to save it. 

The Lord has continually highlighted the importance of denying everything to gain everything in Christ through the past couple of years of my life. Matthew 16:25-26 says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” The more we try to cling to the things of the world the more we lose our souls. It can be scary to surrender everything to God, but I promise it is worth it to find your life in Christ.

At first when I knew the Lord had called me to transfer universities that was the last thing I wanted to do; I had a large scholarship, a signed apartment lease for the next year, and a year’s worth of school done. If I transferred, I would lose my scholarship, I would have to either pay my lease or find someone to take it over (which was highly unlikely) and hope my credits would transfer to a private university. Nonetheless, after taking that step of faith and “losing” what I thought was a LOT, the Lord provided every single one of those things for me before transferring. I got a new scholarship, someone took over my lease, and not only did my credits transfer but I am graduating a semester early. At that moment, it felt like I was losing everything and gaining nothing, but that was not the case; I gained everything in the Lord. He has revealed Himself to me in new ways, my relationship with Him has grown, and though giving up what I thought my future would look like was hard, it is incomparable to the riches of what He has bestowed and the future ones in store.

That said, I encourage you! Ask the Lord, “What am I holding on to that is causing me to lose my life?” And once the Lord reveals it, ask Him how to lay it down. He is so good, and it is worth it to lose whatever is keeping you from fully stepping into His plan for your life. When those challenging moments arise, go straight to the Father and He will give you strength. I pray that through the difficult moments, we all remember whose we are and where we are seated with Christ.