Am I remembering that I cannot out give God, and that I will be rewarded for any sacrifices I make to follow and serve Jesus? 

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."

INSIGHT:  It can be very costly to your temporary life here, to follow Jesus into eternal life hereafter.  2,000 years of Christian testimony tells us that Jesus often directs us to follow Him in ways that require us to make painful sacrifices, leaving behind homes, jobs, passions, even family & friends.  This can be very scary to our natural man, but God promises great reward if we obey Him, and again, to whom else will you go for eternal life?  Who else do you owe your life to?

I will never forget May 29th, 2011.  The divorce from my 1st spouse was taking its toll. I was losing everything and had to move in with my parents at the age of 37.  I remember driving up I-75 knowing I was moving 600 miles away from my children.  I was crying and feeling so confused in my own human understanding, “God, how can this be your will for me to leave these children behind like this and especially in this situation…how can this possibly be?”  God spoke clearly to my heart, “Trust me.”  That’s all He said.  Let me tell you what He kept hidden from me, and didn’t tell me, in those most painful of days where I chose to move forward by faith, into the darkness with Him.

He didn’t say, “Michael, I am going to separate you from everything you have ever known, so that you will learn to hear me and move from knowing about me, to knowing me.”  He didn’t say, “I’m going to begin speaking to you, giving you clear direction regarding my will for your life.”  He didn’t tell me, “You will become a better father for your oldest son Tyler, and your step-daughter Kealey, and a better husband to Lisa, all whom I will give to you one day, by your first becoming a better son to me.  He didn’t say, “I’m going to use the hardness of heart in your enemies, and their persecution of you, like a blow torch in my hand to discipline you and burn off much in you, which is not like Me, things which would make you feel ashamed to stand before Me still in possession of, upon your death.”  He didn’t say, “I am going to give you freedom from sin, rest, and contentment in me, unlike anything you have ever known.   I am going to let you suffer much for my Name, but I will warn you of many troubles and protect you from every evil attack, turning every one of them for your good.   You will know by experience my resurrection power over much spiritual death in your life, and my power will be made manifest to others, through your mortal life.  One day, you will thank me more times for allowing all this suffering into your life, than you ever will for my finally removing it.” 

He didn’t tell me He was going to put on an unprecedented display of His Sovereign control over all people, animals, spirits, circumstances and time, by ordering every single significant event in my life into precise Biblical periods of time, showing He was the author and controller of it all!  He didn’t tell me that He was going to make His power known in my weakness, nor that He would give me a faith so strong that not all the devils in hell could prevail against it.  And He certainly didn’t say, “I am going to redeem all this one day by sending thousands of hurting and confused children of mine, some even suicidal, all whom I love, to your ministry to rescue, feed, correct, and instruct them, in the true faith, so they too may know me and live by faith.  All of this will happen if you live by faith and obey me, no matter how painful or foolish it all seems, at the time, to your human understanding. 

The Lord didn’t say any of those things to me back then, yet all that has all happened and much more, after I determined to hold on to Him by faith, no matter what I saw or heard or felt, along the way.

If you are called to separate from loved ones, you can know that God has a very good reason for it, and trust in Him totally, rather than leaning on your own human understanding.  Do not allow the fear of loss to rob you of God's very best for your life in this life or the next.  As Jim Elliot said, “Wise is the man who gives up what he cannot keep, in order to gain what he cannot lose.”  Give thought to this today, “What is it that God may be hiding from you about the other glorious side of your full surrender and obedience to Him?”