Church last Sunday

Last Sunday we spent some time with the passage of the rich young ruler

The Rich Official 18One day one of the local officials asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to deserve eternal life?"
19Jesus said, "Why are you calling me good? No one is good--only God. 20You know the commandments, don't you? No illicit sex, no killing, no stealing, no lying, honor your father and mother."
21He said, "I've kept them all for as long as I can remember."
22When Jesus heard that, he said, "Then there's only one thing left to do: Sell everything you own and give it away to the poor. You will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23This was the last thing the official expected to hear. He was very rich and became terribly sad. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and not about to let them go.
24Seeing his reaction, Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who have it all to enter God's kingdom? 25I'd say it's easier to thread a camel through a needle's eye than get a rich person into God's kingdom."
26"Then who has any chance at all?" the others asked.
27"No chance at all," Jesus said, "if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."
28Peter tried to regain some initiative: "We left everything we owned and followed you, didn't we?"
29"Yes," said Jesus, "and you won't regret it. No one who has sacrificed home, spouse, brothers and sisters, parents, children--whatever- 30will lose out. It will all come back multiplied many times over in your lifetime. And then the bonus of eternal life!"


We meditated on the passage for some time. One of these meditations we were to find a word or phrase that stuck out to us. The one that kept coming into my mind everytime it was read was, "you won't regret it".

Seems we often have many regrets in life. And we worry about adding to that list of regrets. But it is interesting, when we talk about sacrifices in regards to following Jesus, we won't regret them. I have learned through experience, that the more I sacrifice, the more I realize it was no sacrifice at all. Whatever I give I get much more in return.

Go ahead test it out, give all you got, you won't regret it.

the rev