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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