What's in it for me?

"If laying your life down for Christ is going to get you something then you are missing the whole point of being a Christian."

I got a comment from someone with this quote. I have to say, if we get nothing for laying down our lives, then we are simply engaging in pointless self destruction, and I don't know why a healthy person would do that. God is not asking us to lay down our lives for nothing. Laying down our lives is the essence of Walking in the Spirit--and it will yield many personal benefits--love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, self-control, etc. God will also reward us eternally for it. He is faithful to reward those who seek him, and his ways are good.

I think that this belief is also falsely pious. You got saved because there was something in it for YOU, not God. What did God get by saving you from destruction? Certainly, we walk in gratitude for what God has done. But God knows we are weak and small. God alone is great. The greatest believer's pile of "something for God" is the tiniest thing, no where near a worthy sacrifice. We are the beficiaries in Christ, not God. It isn't selfish or greedy to say so, it's acknowledgement of our smallness and His Greatness.

We need to understand that God is not on a quest to get blood from a turnip. He offers us the good works to do, gives us the will and power to do them, and also the reason to step into them--not just gratitude, but also temporal and eternal reward for obedience and disclipline for disobedience. It's all His. The glory for it is All His. Why does he give us good works to do? Because it is good for us to participate with Him in what he's doing--a blessing. Does he need us to serve him? No, we serve as a priveledge and blessing--like a poor person allowed to drive a rich person's car to deliver the gift of the rich person to someone in need, and in return the driver gets a million dollars. His goodness is all out of proportion to ours, and there is absolutely more in it for us than Him.

So I do not think that it is out of line to consider that as we lay down our lives, we receive many blessings much greater than what we lay down. That is WHY we lay down our lives, not because God has something to gain from us.