“Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come everlasting life.”

— Luke 18:29–30

When the Lord asks us to follow Him, He doesn’t promise an easy nor simple life. In fact, He often calls us to give up something or someone for the sake of the Gospel. Perhaps you’ve had to let go of a cherished dream or a relationship to follow Christ.

Whatever God asks us to give up, we never make those sacrifices in vain. God always repays us “many times more,” not because He owes us anything, but because of His kindness and mercy. Though our sacrifices may cause us pain that we may live with for the rest of our lives, Jesus promises the blessings will be worth the sacrifices. When we look back on our lives, we’ll see that whatever we gave up for His sake, He gave back to us in other ways, and then some. For example, some choose to follow Jesus even though their families reject them, but suddenly they find they have a worldwide family in the body of Christ.

As humans, we never find these sacrifices easy, but the difficulty is part of God’s grand design. God tries us in order to strengthen us. A father tries to get his little son to learn to walk, not so that he will fall down and knock out a tooth, but so that he will know the joy of walking. God tries us through our sacrifices so He can test our faith, purifying and strengthening us. It is sad that many people never experience God’s incredible blessings because they don’t want to make sacrifices. Instead of putting their all on the altar, they stand far off and debate about the reasonableness of God’s request. But God never asks us to make sacrifices until He has prepared us for them. He makes us ready to stretch and grow into stronger people. And when we undergo the trials, God blesses us tremendously.

Is God asking you to make a sacrifice that seems humanly impossible? Don’t stand by and miss the blessing He has in store for you. Say “yes,” obey Him, and watch Him do great and mighty things in your life.

“In this world it is not what we take up,
but what we give up, that makes us rich.”
Henry Ward Beecher