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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Worshiping and Glorifying God - Part 8: Guaranteed from Heaven


Guaranteed from Heaven

The spiritual principle of God multiplying and returning manifold back to us of whatever we invest for Him and for His work in His will is not conjecture, but one stated by none other than the Lord Jesus Himself; and simultaneously He has also assured us that of whatever we invest for God, the returns will be a hundredfold.

To a query put up by Peter, “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” (Mark 10:29-30). Take note of the assurance given in the infallible words of the Lord – a guaranteed from heaven hundred-fold return on whatever investment we make for the sake of the Lord and the gospel.

The Lord here is making an offer of double returns – hundredfold on earth, and eternal life in the age to come. Don’t get put off by the words ‘with persecutions’ – we face them even in our secular jobs which we do for the world. Which one of us can say that we have no problems or issues in our secular jobs? We all have them; we all put up with them, and we all continue to work with them, well knowing that they will always be there. If we were to be given an offer by a CEO of a company of an absolutely guaranteed hundred-fold return on each and every investment we make under that offer in his company, although along with some problems; how many of us would let the offer of increasing our worldly wealth a hundred-fold pass? If we are willing to take those ‘persecutions’ in our stride for returns on secular jobs on the assurance of some man, why not be willing to do the same for the Lord?

The answer to this predicament is in the incidence immediately preceding Peter’s query and the Lord’s answer – read Mark 10:17-18, to see the full picture. The Rich Young Ruler had a desire for eternal life, a reverence for the Lord and he did believe that the Lord will provide him the answer to his quandary; but what he did not have was the trust to act on the Lord’s solution. The Lord did provide him the solution (Mark 10:21-22), but it was too radical, too unexpected and seemed too steep a price to pay; and he left disappointed, just as he had come. What the Lord was asking him to do was no different from what the Lord had taught His disciples – Give to Get: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

This is the same place where most of us falter and suffer loss – despite our reverence for the Lord, our belief in Him, our desire for eternal things, we are not willing to take the Lord at His Word; we want to listen to what He has to say to us, but do not have the courage to obey Him. We are not willing to let go of that which God has placed in our hands but is asking us to let go. God wants us to have faith in Him, that when we voluntarily empty ourselves at His behest, He will fill us up with even more and even better. It is only when we give, when we empty ourselves that we make available to God the required space to fill us up abundantly with new and better blessings.

It is said that ‘better’ is often the enemy of the ‘best’; don’t let the ‘better’ which you now have prevent you from getting the ‘best’ that God wants you to have. Invest, sow what you have for God’s kingdom in His field, and prepare to receive the bountiful harvest.

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