Giving Up Everything

TEXT: LUKE 14:25-35

KEY VERSE: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

One day, Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman asked General William Booth to reveal the secret of his success. Booth, after some hesitation, had tears dropping from his eyes and said: “I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I have, men with greater opportunities, but from the day that I got the poor of London on my heart and caught a vision of what Jesus could do with them, on that day I made up my mind that God should have all of William Booth there was.” Booth’s total surrender moved Chapman to conviction and he remarked: “I learned from William Booth that the greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”

Answering the call to follow Christ always requires a change, but the change may not be in physical location, profession, or status. The change is in our heart, as we take our cross to follow Him. It is a change where we learn the secret of living in righteousness and serving God with eternity in view.

Peter, James and John were partners in a small fishing business on the sea of Galilee. This was their source of support for themselves as well as their families. Yet, when they heard the call to become “fishers of men,” they eagerly responded and followed. Matthew was a tax collector, but he walked away from his life of security when Jesus called. He left everything and followed. Abraham in the Old Testament moved his entire household to follow God without even knowing where he was being sent (Genesis 12:1-5). Moses, at eighty years of age, left the tending of flocks to follow God’s call to lead His people out of bondage to Pharaoh. Elisha slaughtered his yoke of oxen and burnt the plowing equipment as he set out to follow Elijah.

Following Christ is a divine call to lose mundane things to gain eternity of blissful and enduring happiness. As we draw closer to our heavenly Father, we will find His call to be irresistible. 

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THOUGHT FOR YOU: The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his absolute surrender.

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