A Whole New Realm of Blessing

# 594 - Today's Du-votional comes from: Mr 10:29-31 “So Jesus answered and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, "who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time--houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions--and in the age to come, eternal life. "But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

Disciples of Jesus are forsakers. Lu 14:33 says, "So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

And here we see two levels of forsaking. There is one forsaking for His sake and another forsaking for the gospel's sake. The first refers to one's own personal faith and salvation, the second refers to those who we would call missionaries today. (the gospel's sake)

Notice that the promised reward is the same for both.

But what is this promised reward? If we take it literally all believers and missionaries will end up with one hundred brothers, one hundred sisters, one hundred mothers, one hundred children, and one hundred parcels of land! Sounds like a logistical nightmare to me!

So what is Jesus really saying here? Simply put, He is promising to open up a whole new realm of blessing to all forsakers, giving them access to all the people in His kingdom, (we call that fellowship) And He promises to dispense any and all material goods to His forsakers as needed.

These blessings of shared fellowship and material goods are for the here and now, (hence the 100 figure as opposed to 1000 which would represent the total completeness of eternity.)

This sharing of fellowship and material goods is beautifully portrayed in the 2nd Chapter of Acts, where we read: “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.” (Acts 2:44,45)

Some of this is missing to a certain degree in the church today, and maybe it's missing because we haven't truly been willing to forsake all. When we go “all in” with Jesus the fellowship and shared material blessings will follow suit.

Father, help me to let go from anything that is keeping me from enjoying the hundredfold blessings that Jesus promises to His forsakers.