The First Shall Be Last – 25 May 2010

 

Today’s Gospel reading in the Lectionary is Mark 10:28-31. 

??Then Peter began to say to Jesus, “See, we have left all and followed You.”

?So 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. ?

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”  [NKJV]

Here Jesus assures the disciples that anyone who gives up something valuable for His sake will receive back a hundred times in this life, although not necessarily in the same form.  So he gives an example, someone may be rejected by their family for accepting Christ, but they will gain the larger family of believers.

Along with these rewards comes the potential for persecution because the world rejects God.  Don’t blindly follow Jesus just for the rewards!

The corrupt condition of our society encourages confusion in values but in the world to come, the values of the world will be reversed.  Those who seek status and importance will have none in heaven; those who are humble here will be great in heaven. 

We are bombarded by messages that tell us how to be important and how to feel good, and Jesus’ teaching about putting others first seems alien.  But in eternity it is those who have done precisely that who receive their reward in heaven.  And the heaven that Jesus envisages is not some ethereal dwelling place for harp playing – but a renewed earth on which He reigns.

Come Lord Jesus come!