Looking to the Eternal

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62

Have you ever said to God, “I will follow you wherever you lead me”? In chapter 9 of the Gospel of Luke Jesus was walking down the road when a man caught up in the moment said to Jesus “I will follow You wherever You go.” He thinks discipleship will be a glamorous life. Jesus corrects this impression. He tells him that discipleship is not easy. It’s a difficult life with no place to call home. It means putting your hand to the plow and doing the ordinary, hard work. It is in this unexciting everyday discipleship that the glory is found.

As followers of Christ we should not look back to the things that we gave up to follow Christ as if we are missing out. That is what Lot's wife did. She was lamenting what she had left behind. God did not call us to a life that would be easy. In fact the exact opposite is true.

The following is what Jesus promised us: 

• Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Matthew 5:12

• “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man Luke 6:22

• And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Mark 13:11-13

As we seek to follow Christ we must not look back to the life we had before we knew Christ as Lord and Savior. We should pray that God gives us the strength to say with Paul, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Glory!!!!

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark