BORN TO LOSE

That title might sound like a throwback to some cheesy rock anthem from the eighties—but stay with me. It’s more true than we’d like to admit. We’re born, we form habits, and we slowly grow into someone we eventually accept as “just who I am.” Then we settle there. We tell ourselves, “God made me this way,” and use the phrase I’m only human as a convenient escape from deeper spiritual responsibility.

But when Jesus stepped into the picture, He shattered that mindset. He exposed the hard truth: if we rely on our human nature alone, we are born to lose. The world we’re born into—broken and ruled by sin—cannot produce anything but more brokenness. And that’s why Jesus’ words sound so radical.

He said that to follow Him, to find life that lasts forever, we must deny ourselves (die to our old selves), take up our cross (Mark 8:34), and be born again (John 3:3). That is not self-help; it is self-surrender. The reason so many people—even some believers—struggle with this is because His call runs against everything our ego wants to cling to.

Jesus’ teaching presses us with a choice: either grasp at our own life and lose it, or surrender ourselves to Him and truly live. Free will is a gift, but it can just as easily become our downfall. The self was never meant to be its own god.