Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

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.

Those who risk all for God will find that they have both lost all and gained all

The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness.

But most wonderful of all is the fact that we who have consecrated ourselves to him, honor him not only with our voices and with the sound of words, but also with complete elevation of soul, so that we choose to give testimony unto him rather than to preserve our own lives.

What a strange thing! In filling myself I had emptied myself

God would have us part with nothing for Him, but that which will damn us if we keep it.

I was valuing my survival more than sharing my faith.

Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:25)

One of the great ironies of life is that if you give up your life, you gain it. If you help others, you benefit. If you lose yourself, you find yourself.

The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for "life" is the word psyche—the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life—those are the things that will actually destroy us.

Consecration is death to self. I know there is a fear that if we give more of ourselves to God, there will be less of us left, but it's the exact opposite. It's not until we die to self that we truly come alive. The more we give to God, the more we have and the more we become. It's only in losing our lives that we will really find them.