What Is Worthy of Our Ultimate Devotion?
Every day, we make decisions about what we value most.
In the quiet moments before dawn, when the world is sleeping and our morning thoughts are new, we sometimes find ourselves confronted with life's most foundational question:
What matters most?
Like a compass needle that always finds north, our lives invariably orient themselves toward the things we deem most worthy of our devotion. Our calendars, bank statements, and browser histories tell the hidden truth about our actual priorities—not the ones we claim to have, but the ones we actually live by.
Jesus posed this question with disarming directness:
"What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? (Mark 8:36)
Is anything worth more than your soul?"
It's a question that cuts through the noise of our busy lives like a bell ringing in a silent sanctuary. What is worth so much that all our devotion, all our time, our effort, our energy—all of our being—gets poured into it?
The Currency of Our Lives
We are all investors. Not just with our money, but with something far more precious and irreplaceable: our lives. Every human being receives an unknown allotment of heartbeats, breaths, and days—a currency more valuable than any digital coin or precious metal. And like all currencies, we spend it somewhere.
Some invest heavily in a portfolio that includes career advancement, climbing corporate ladders that lean against buildings they'll never own. Others pour their life's currency into the bank of reputation, carefully curating the image they project to the watching world. Others focus on accumulating experiences—collecting moments like seashells, hoping that a book of tourist guide stories might somehow translate into meaning.
These investments aren't inherently flawed. A fulfilling career can provide purpose. Healthy relationships enrich our journey. Material comforts can be enjoyed with gratitude. But Jesus asks us to consider whether any of these deserve to be the ultimate purchase of our life's currency.
Imagine a man who spends decades building a magnificent sand castle on the beach. His craftsmanship is impeccable—towers soaring, bridges arching, moats perfectly dug. Onlookers marvel at his creation. Yet as the tide inevitably rises, his masterpiece dissolves back into nothing. We might admire his dedication even while we question his wisdom.
Was that particular investment worthy of a lifetime?
The Great Exchange
In a marketplace where our lives are the currency, what do we receive in return? Jesus suggests a sobering possibility: we might exchange our very souls for things that ultimately cannot satisfy or endure.
Consider how easily this happens in our everyday choices. We trade genuine connections for the dopamine hits of social media approval. We exchange family time for more hours at work pursuing promotions that we'll forget about in old age. We substitute the hard work of character development for the quicker path of image management.
These exchanges happen incrementally. We drift toward them like swimmers caught in a gentle current, only realizing how far we've traveled from shore when realize that we've strayed too far from the shoreline.
The ancient philosopher Augustine observed that our hearts remain restless until they rest in God. This restlessness manifests as the nagging dissatisfaction that follows even our greatest achievements—the persistent sense that there must be more than this. Like someone drinking saltwater to quench their thirst, pursuing ultimate fulfillment in anything other than our Creator only intensifies our spiritual dehydration.
The Paradoxical Path
The strangest part of Jesus' teaching is that valuing Him above all else—even our own lives—doesn't diminish us but fulfills us.
"Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it," He promised, introducing a paradox that has puzzled and inspired followers for centuries (Matthew 10:39).
This paradox plays out in the lives of those who have taken Jesus at His word. Mother Teresa found fulfillment in Calcutta's slums that no luxury could provide. Dietrich Bonhoeffer discovered freedom in a Nazi prison that no compromise could have offered. Countless ordinary believers have experienced profound purpose in placing Christ at the center, even when doing so cost them dearly.
Their testimonies echo across time:
in giving our lives away for something genuinely worthy, we receive them back transformed.
The Daily Reckoning
If we're honest, most of us live with divided devotion. We acknowledge Christ with our words while hedging our bets with our choices. We want the benefits of spiritual centeredness without relinquishing our backup plans.
This division, however, isn't sustainable. Eventually, life forces a reckoning between competing devotions. Illness, loss, disappointment, or simply the passage of time strips away our illusions, revealing what we have truly valued most in our lives.
Perhaps the first step is simple honesty—acknowledging the gap between what we say is worthy and what our lives demonstrate we believe is worthy. From that place of honesty, we can begin the daily work of reordering our devotion, one choice at a time.
Because in the end, the question isn't whether we will devote our lives to something. We will do that. Something must be first. The question is whether what we've chosen to value is truly worthy of the priceless currency we spend on it.
Jesus invites us to imagine a life organized around something, or someone, truly deserving of our ultimate allegiance–a life where our deepest devotion matches the highest worth.
That invitation remains open today, awaiting our response with each choice we make about how to spend the currency of our lives.
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Steven E Fairbanks
Steven E Fairbanks
Steven E Fairbanks
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