We Left Everything

Mark 10:22-31
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"
27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."28 Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"
29 "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 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields — and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
NIV

Jesus is speaking of the contrast between the riches of man and the riches of God. It is more difficult for a person to lose or give up much than it is to give up less, even if the much is just an illusion. It takes great faith to let go of something in your hand for the promise of something that is to come. That is why faith can be so hard, to trust and believe.

The disciples were right to ask, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looks at them, surely in love for that is why He came, and tells them what is impossible for man is possible for God. He addresses them as children. In the kingdom of God this title has high honor; they are children of God.

The disciples have left everything to follow him. Jesus answers and comforts Peter as He tells him of the riches of God. We don’t receive deeds to a hundred homes or suddenly have a large household to fill those homes. Remember that hymn “the things of this world will grow strangely dim”? The so called riches of this world fade as we enter the household of God and the body of Christ. We stand in the fellowship of brothers and sisters beyond number. As we grow in our understanding of what is real we are increasing able to see the abundant life given to us today and the promise of eternal life to come. We begin to see what is meant by the reversal of first and last. What we gain in Christ is worth more than anything and everything we could do on our own.