Matthew 19:29-30 And 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.
Everyone spoken of here is Christ Jesus's believers, all those who have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. Jesus is speaking here of total complete surrender to Him and the furtherance of His Gospel to the ends of the earth. Every self-denying disciple of Christ will receive a reward for following Him that will be much more than one has sacrificed. Jesus said a hundred times as much; He did not mean that if you give up your house, you will receive 100 houses in return, no more than if you leave your siblings or parents, you will receive 100 brothers and sisters or 100 mothers and fathers.
One
hundred times is not literal in a material sense of the word; Jesus means that
we will receive abundantly more than we give up when we decide to follow Him.
In one aspect, a hundred times is literal, in spiritual perception. However,
the number one hundred is also symbolic of a significant amount that we cannot
calculate with earthly measurements. There is not a way that we as humans will
ever be able to comprehend or understand to the fullness the spiritual rewards
that come our way when we give our lives to Christ Jesus. We are in debt to God
for the sacrifice made on our behalf on the Cross of Calvary. Of course, we
will never be able to pay God back, so we will always be in His debt. However,
God is not and never will be in our debt because we do not have anything God needs.
Consequently, we can't give more back to God than He has given us.
There
are more ways that God will give to us more than we can ever imagine or
envision than we have time in this writing to outline. However, it would
behoove us to mention just a few. First, the indwelling of the power of the
Holy Spirit; secondly, the peace that comes to our lives through the Grace of
our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Last but not least, the Love that God has for
us even though none of us are deserving of that Love (1 Corinthians 2:9).
The
reassurance we have that no matter how dark the valley of the shadow of death
we sometimes must tread, God will always be there, we will never have to go it
alone. As mentioned earlier, we do not have the time to note all the blessings
we have through Christ Jesus; God will give us more than we give up for Him;
suffice to say, the number is incalculable and immeasurable.
Charles
Spurgeon once told a parable of a preacher who preached mighty for God and led
many souls to Christ Jesus. God revealed that he would receive no reward for
what he had done for God throughout his life in Heaven. He asked whom the
reward would go, and an angel told him that it would go to an older man who
used to sit on the pulpit stairs and pray for him. Well, it may be so, though
it is more likely that both would share their master's praise.
We
are to live our lives focused on the eternal and not the temporal. There will
be times in this life that we will be mistreated or isolated for our faith,
times that Satan will hinder us, but that does not mean that we are serving God
in vain. Paul spent the last several years under house arrest in Rome and was
not allowed to leave home without a few Roman soldiers accompanying him. Yet,
from those closed doors, he wrote several books of the New Testament and
continued preaching the Gospel from his prison home. Always remember that when
an earthly door shuts, and it seems like our ministry is in vain, that the
gates of Heaven are wide open, and one day all faithful servants of Christ
Jesus will hear, "well done, my good and faithful servant" (Matthew
25:21).
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