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 ...

The context of the above extract from Mark chapter 10, is of a rich young ruler coming to Jesus and asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. It seems that the young man was confident that he had kept all of the commandments, and Jesus essentially told him to go sell everything that he had, give to the poor and follow him (Jesus). We are told that the rich man went away sad because he had great possessions.

Jesus commented that it is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom. The point seems to be, for the rich man at least, that his riches were an idol, which he put before following the Lord. The disciples were amazed wondering who then could enter the kingdom, and saying that they had left all to follow him. The above extract is Jesus response.

The command to the rich man to sell everything, is not a universal command, it was a specific command to address the specific problem, which was that the young man was putting his trust in riches rather than in the Lord.

Doing the right thing for the Christian is much more than doing what is moral and not doing what is not. It has to do with doing what he is calling us to do. In other words it has to do with obedience, which at times can be radical. What Jesus is saying is that this kind of radical obedience aligns us with his promises and provision. And you can almost see the twinkle in his eye as he adds “with persecutions.” This call is very different from the lukewarm version of Christianity that seems to be the norm in the West. Passages like this are meant to challenge us to the core!

Father, it is clear that the wealth of this rich young ruler was more important to him than being your disciple. Lord search me and show me anything and everything that I might be tempted to put before you. And then give me the grace to give it all to you. In Jesus Name Amen