What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Mark 8: 36-37, KJV

This quote from Jesus came at one of the pivotal points of His ministry. Peter had just made that great confession that Jesus was the Son of God, and Jesus revealed right after that He was about to be arrested and then crucified. Peter didn't like that prospect any more than would we have had we been in his position. So, Peter rebuked Jesus! We don't know exactly what he said, but we can imagine the gist of the conversation. He likely reminded Jesus that since He was the Son of God that He could do anything - including preventing His impending arrest and crucifixion. 

This is the point when Jesus told Peter that He did not have in mind the things of God; rather, he had in mind the things of men. And just as it would have been true if Jesus had made this comment to us, it was absolutely true when He made it to Peter, for Peter was not looking at the big picture. God had not sent Jesus into the world to establish a physical kingdom with Himself at the head. God had sent Jesus into the world to die for the sins of men so that they could be part of His eternal kingdom! And while anyone can understand that the eternal is more important than the temporary, Peter at the time just couldn't see it.

I believe this is the part that I struggle with as well. Not in a way that I think Jesus should have formed a kingdom here on earth, but in the way that I focus way too much on physical things and often give far too little thought as to the eternal.

In such instances, we all need to be reminded of Jesus' famous question: What good is it to accomplish our physical goals - even if that accomplishment were to yield us the entire world, if in the end we were to forfeit our very souls?

This is the common struggle we all share - this struggle between the physical and the spiritual, the struggle between the temporary and the eternal. Sometimes I get so caught up in the physical things I need to be doing that I actually lose sight of what I am here for in the first place. It's not that it is unimportant to take care of ourselves and our loved one's physical needs (after all, the Scriptures tell us that if a man will not work, neither should he eat), it's just that we cannot make this the priority of our lives.

Peter was properly concerned that if Jesus died that He would not have the opportunity to continue His ministry. Add that to the fact that Peter had to be upset at the idea of Jesus' impending death, and we can begin to see why he wanted to argue the point with Jesus. In a like manner, there are physical things that we can see would be good for us to be accomplishing. However, if we lose sight of the fact that our physical needs are secondary to the spiritual, then we might just end up gaining all sorts of physical wealth for ourselves and our families, but in the end, we might miss out on heaven because we have not given enough thought to the things that God wants us to accomplish.

In other words, we might find ourselves fat and happy from the neat things that we have been able to earn for ourselves, but it quite possibly was at the cost of our taking care of our spiritual duty to God and to Christ. So, instead of putting God first in important areas such as the study of His word and in making the church our priority so that we might help it maximize its mission of seeking and saving the lost, we might find that we were too busy studying the things that were needed to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of our children. And when it came to our duty to Christ's church? Well. we might have been too busy for that too, and as a result, the church was not able to accomplish all of the things that Christ desires for His body. And when the church fails in its mission, the seeking and saving of the lost just somehow does not happen.

If you find yourself in a similar position to me and Peter, a position where your main focus is on physical accomplishments, then welcome to the club! It is a common struggle for all men, is it not? The question now is what are we going to do about it? Will we repent and put our physical needs and wants in a secondary position, or will we continue to focus on our worldly pursuits and give the leftovers of our time, money and efforts to God? The fact is that God has never accepted a servant who seeks his own good first, and God's second. God and Christ will be first in our lives, or we may find that they never really were in our lives at all.

So, here is the bottom line: We must address this same question that Peter had to answer some 2,000 years ago when Christ asked it of him. What does it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul in the process? What is it that we may have been exchanging for our souls? It is something to give serious thought to, wouldn't you agree?