TWO SIDES OF THE ONE COIN
Mark 10:28-31 Peter said to Jesus, “We have left everything
to follow you!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left
home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me
and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present
age…and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last,
and the last first.”
Remember earlier that Jesus
himself commanded Peter to leave his fishing nets behind and follow. Jesus is
not condemning Peter because of his laments over lost time with family and
friends. Rather, Jesus is helping Peter, and us, see the act of self-denial not
as a badge of honor. We are not to boast of our qualified standing as ministers
or missionaries for Christ. Nothing in our leaving the secular world for
ministry life earns us special favor with God; after all we are only being
obedient in doing what he has commanded.
Understand that our leaving
the life we have always known is a journey in receiving from Jesus a life so
staggeringly full of grace and glory that any sacrifice made to obtain it pales
by comparison. If we leave our family behind, we gain a new family of disciples.
If we give up our possessions, we gain the right of sonship in the new kingdom.
Give up your house and you gain a mansion in heaven. Lose your life and you
gain a new one.
Following Jesus is not about
giving up all that you have in this world. It is about gaining the abundance of
eternal life both now and forever more. This is the double movement of
discipleship, leaving behind and receiving abundantly, the two sides of the one
coin.
Jericho Road Ministries
Chapel, 2010.
