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He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. – Matthew 10:37
We love our families, our children. God wants us also to love our brethren in the faith, and even our enemies. But Jesus shows us our love for Him must be greater than our love for anyone or anything. He said what He said because He loves and values us. He knows that our love for Him is our preservation; because He alone is our salvation and our only hope of eternal life. – “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father except by Me.” –John 14:6.
If we love Him more than those we love, then those we love can never move us away from the love that saves us.
If we love Him more than the things we own and the contents of our bank accounts, then we will not deny Him when threatened with the loss of those things or even loved ones.
Faithful servants of Christ have been forced to watch loved ones tortured because they refused to deny Jesus. Someday we all may suffer the loss of everything when faced with the world’s attempts to brand us with satan’s mark of the beast (Rev. 13:16-18).
If our treasure is truly in heaven (Matthew 6:21) and our minds are set on the permanent reality of things above (Colossians 3:1,2), we can reject the temporary for the eternal.
None of these choices will come without tears and great sobbing agony. But the trial of our faith is worth much more than the gold that perishes (I Peter 1:7).
We must spend quality time with God in prayer and His word, asking Him to develop the faith producing love in our Savior that will keep us standing in Him when the forces of evil try to compromise, or force us into spiritual failure.
We succeed when we can confidently walk away from our losses in this life toward our promised eternal inheritance in Jesus; an inheritance and hope which has, through faith, become more precious than anything, or anyone we can see with our mortal eyes.
Copyright 2022 by H. D. Shively
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