For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake is the one that will save it.

6. (a) What cost can be involved in a course of self-sacrifice? (b) By doing God’s will, how can one ‘save his soul’?

⁶ True, such a life of self-sacrifice is not easy. It involves a cost, which includes time and effort. In some cases it may even mean the loss of one’s life at the hands of those who persecute God’s servants. However, as Jesus showed, the one doing God’s will would ‘save his soul,’ or life. In what way? In that he would gain Jehovah’s approval and the eventual reward that God promises all those who serve him, for he is “the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.” (Heb. 11:6) For most of God’s loyal servants, that reward is eternal life in a righteous new order here on earth: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” (Ps. 37:29) And “they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.” (Ps. 37:11) Nor can death itself stand in the way of this reward, because Jehovah guarantees that there is going to be “a resurrection of life.”​—John 5:29.