The law of keeping by surrendering and losing by defending is revealed by our Lord in His celebrated but little understood declaration: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt. 16:24).

Here is seen the glaring disparity between the ways of God and the ways of men. When the world takes its hands off a prized possession someone grabs it and disappears. Therefore the world must conserve by defending. So men hoard their hearts treasures, lock up their possessions, protect their good name with libel laws, hedge themselves about with protective devices of every sort and guard their shores with powerful armed forces. This is all according to Adam's philosophy which springs from his fallen nature and is confirmed by thousands of years of practical experience. To challenge it is to invite the scow of mankind; and yet our Lord did challenge it.

To be specific, Christ did not condemn the world for defending its own; He turned from the fallen world and spoke about another world altogether, a world where Adam's philosophy is invalid and where his techniques are inoperative. He spoke of the kingdom of God whose laws are exactly opposite to those of the kingdom of man.

Long before Christ laid down the spiritual principles that should govern the new kingdom God had said by the mouth of His prophet, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isa. 53:8); and Christ said elsewhere, "That which Is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). Between spiritual laws and the laws of human society there is a great gulf. In His wisdom God moves on the high road according to His eternal purposes; man on the low road moves along as best he can, improvising and muddling through according to no certain plan, hoping that things will come out all right and almost always seeing his hopes disappointed.

The true Christian is a child of two worlds. He lives among fallen men, receives all of his earlier concepts from them and develops a fallen view of life along with everyone from Adam on. When he is regenerated and inducted into the new creation he is called to live according to the laws and principles that underlie the new kingdom, but all his training and his thinking have been according to the old. So he may, unless he is very wise and prayerful, find himself trying to live a heavenly life after an earthly pattern. This is what Paul called "carnal" living. The issues of the new Christian life are influenced by the automatic responses of the old life and confusion results.

Against this background it is easy to understand why so many Christians instinctively cling to their treasures, defend their possessions and fight for their reputation. They are reacting after the old pattern which they had followed so naturally and so long.

It takes real faith to begin to live the life of heaven while still upon the earth, for this requires that we rise above the law of moral gravitation and bring to our everyday living the high wisdom of God. And since this wisdom is contrary to that of the world, conflict is bound to result. This, however, is a small price to pay for the inestimable privilege of following Christ.

It is vitally important that we move up into the Spirit and cease to defend ourselves. I have never met a victorious Christian who was on the defensive, but I have met I cannot tell how many jumpy, skittish and thoroughly unhappy Christians who were burning up their energies in a vain endeavor to protect themselves. These poor, dejected souls imagine that someone is forever trying, as they say, to "put something over" on them. The result is worry, resentfulness and a kind of low-pressure hostility toward everyone they may have reason to believe is after something they possess.

My earnest advice to all such nervous souls is to turn everything over to God and relax. A real Christian need not defend his possession nor his position. God will take care of both. Let go of your treasures and the Lord will keep them for you unto life eternal. Hang unto them and they will bring you nothing but trouble and misery to the end of your days.

It is better to throw our little all to the four winds than to get old and sour defending it. It is better to be cheated a few times than to develop a constant suspicion that someone is trying to cheat us. It is better to have the house burglarized than to spend the rest of our days and nights sitting with a rifle across our knees watching over it. Give it up, and keep it. Defend it, and lose it. That is a law of the kingdom and it applies to every regenerated soul.

We can afford to trust God; but we can't afford not to.