RECEIVING MORE BY GIVING UP MORE - How Can That Be?

 RECEIVING MORE BY GIVING UP MORE

One day Jesus and his followers were having a discussion about the challenges that people experience when they choose to give up self-will and follow God’s will. 

In this world we are told to pursue things like pleasure, popularity, power, and money.  These are held out as necessary to have if we are to experience satisfaction and happiness.  Too many people have chased after these things and come up empty.

Jesus reminds His followers and us today that even if we have to give up some things in the short term in order to follow Him, we will receive far more in return than we could ever imagine. 

Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”  Jesus said to them, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”

Matthew 19:23, 27, 29-30

Different things matter to different people but there will always come those times when God is asking us to let go of some things that matter to us in order to follow Him.  Fortunately God does give us big promises that we can hang onto as we make those difficult choices. 

And so I think a very helpful exercise for each of us today is to ask ourselves if there is anything we need to leave behind in order to follow God with all our heart. It’s something we ask God and allow Him to reveal to us.

Loving God, our hearts can so easily be pulled in different directions.  Help us to honour You with our time and to give priority to those things that keep us alive to Your presence in our daily living. What is in our lives today – people, activities, devices, desires that You are quietly telling us to let go of.   

Give us the courage we need to leave behind anything that hinders Your will being 100% active in our lives today.  Amen

We are assured that when we choose to put God first in our lives, we will experience His promise of great blessings in return.  Let’s have a great day living in that promise today.