A Fair Price (Friday Devotional)

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

- Mark 8:36

I have a weakness for memorabilia shops. Surround me with 1960s baseball cards, autographed electric guitars, and vintage movie posters, and I can waste hours admiring every item, mentally rearranging the furniture at home to make room for everything I see. There aren’t many things in a memorabilia shop that I don’t want.

Nevertheless, I almost always walk out empty-handed. Desire is not the problem, but cost. I might stare longingly at that autographed Roger Staubach football helmet, but I shudder at its $400 price tag. I want it, sure, but that’s a steep price to pay.

In life, virtually everything you want comes with a price. If you want financial security, you will have to sacrifice your time and energy to work for it. If you want fame, you will have to sacrifice control and be willing to take risks. If you want strong relationships, you will have to sacrifice getting your way for the sake of investing in the lives of others. The list could go on forever—nearly everything we want out of this life, from the trivial to the essential, comes with some sort of a price.

The question becomes, what price is too steep? Ambition’s lie is that, if you want something bad enough, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to get it, that you must be prepared to sacrifice principles and people on the altar of your dreams. If you want to be respected, for example, you’re going to have to take people down a few pegs along the way and bully your way to the top. If you want to make money, you’re going to have to bend a few ethical rules in pursuit of profit. If you want success, you’re going to have to dominate or remove your competition by any means necessary.

Jesus responds to this whatever-it-takes mentality with a simple question: is it worth it? If you gain the whole world but lose your soul along the way, did you really get what you wanted?

His holy alternative to whatever-it-takes ambition is whatever-it-takes compassion, a willingness to sacrifice your desires for the sake of other people instead of the reverse. Compassion means giving so that others can receive, choosing silence so that others can find their voice, and ultimately even dying so that others can have life—it is the way of the cross, and its price is steep. But where worldly ambition leads you to the despair of an empty soul, Christlike compassion leads you to the joy of an empty tomb.

Ambition and compassion each come with their own rewards, and each come at a different cost. Which price are you willing to pay?