Receiving More By Giving Up More
Thursday May 28, 2020
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 of us have gone down those routes and found addiction and suffering at the end of the road. Jesus reminds His followers that even if we 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 NIV)
These are big promises from God that we can hang onto as we let go of some things. We feel the challenge when we need to enter treatment and must step away from people, places, and things that are familiar. The pull comes when the busyness of a job and making money doesn’t leave time for God or meetings. Too many of us have watched sobriety slip away with every paycheck as we drifted further and further away from fellowship with God and others. The desire for sex and companionship also takes many of us away from God’s plan for our lives.
We each need to ask ourselves if there is anything we need to leave behind in order to follow God with all our heart. We are assured that when we choose to put God first in our lives, we will experience His promise of great blessings in return.
Prayer: Loving God, my heart can so easily be pulled in different directions. Help me to honour You with my time and to give priority to those things that keep me alive to Your presence in my life. Give me the courage to leave behind anything that hinders Your will for my life. Amen
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