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A Hundred Times as Much

 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. (Matthew 19:29)

          This sounds like one of those “name it and claim it” verses, where if we reject our possessions and relationships, God will give us riches untold. That would seem to make it important for us to be irresponsible in our relationships and possessions. But that idea is one of those things that the Bible doesn’t say.

          Leaving home and family as a means of getting God to give us more wealth is not leaving home and family for Jesus’ sake. If you leave home and family for Jesus’ sake, you get Jesus, and you get eternal life.

          If we really understood what it meant to get Jesus, or to get eternal life, the things we go through today would seem far less significant. Consider, for example, that you won the Powerball lottery worth a trillion dollars (and for some reason, it was made tax free!) How would you spend it? Four house worth $5 million each wouldn’t put much of a dent in it. Put a couple vehicles worth a million dollars in the garage at each, and it wouldn’t make that much difference. If you set it as your goal to spend all of it in forty years, you’d probably have to work at it. You might even reach the point of throwing several hundred billion into a foundation or two, just so you don’t have to think about it anymore. I know, it would be a fun challenge to take on, at least for a while.

          But when we think about getting Jesus, or eternal life, we tend to lack that sense of having won the jackpot. Part of that is because we really don’t have something to use as a parallel. We haven’t won the trillion dollars. We haven’t been given the perfect partner. There are times when we may feel like God has blessed our socks off, but we think that’s the big deal, not that it’s a grain of sand on the beach.

          I think I need to make a sign saying, “You call this a blessing? Now, THIS (Jesus, Eternal Life) is a blessing.”[1]And another that reminds me that the troubles are also blessings that are hints in the direction of the glory that is to come.


[1] Ten points if you can tell me what movie I’ve paraphrased. The points don’t add up to anything except a temporary ego boost.

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