But what Peter was talking about was what many of us face today. If I follow Jesus, what will happen to me? It is an issue of security. Jesus responds that when you invest your life in Him, you will receive rewards from Him, a hundredfold in this life and the next. But to the list of relationships and real estate, He adds persecution. It is a poignant introduction of a word that brings sober stillness, no matter how beautiful the other promises.
The promise is for rewards, but it is clearly not a health and wealth deal we have here. It is a giving away of our lives to Christ and a promise that He will never leave us and will provide what we need in return. How He does it is another story. But I am here to tell you that He does it.
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I faced my own insecurities when God called me to preach because I was afraid that I could never regain what I thought I had earned, I was reluctant to give it up, even to follow Jesus. I kept holding on to my job as a manager of a chemical company even though He was calling me to preach. And it worked . . . for a while. Since I had gone to a Kansas undergraduate school and graduated with good grades, a seminary in Kansas City gave me a full scholarship. I didn’t have to pay one single dime to go there. I could keep my job, keep my home, not upset my Aunt Eva who was living in a nice home in Olathe, and life could just go on as normal.
But the seminary was liberal, and keeping my job and trying to go to seminary at night and in the morning and still traveling with the company was becoming a juggling act I couldn’t handle. It began to come tumbling down. One night after I came home from yet another seminary class were I was disappointed in unbiblical teaching and tired from it all, Mae said, “Honey, if God is calling us, let’s just go to a seminary where you can get the best preparation for ministry. Your job here is finished.” She was right. But it took me some time to process it.
When I finally did, I knew one thing: I could never stand in front of a congregation and tell them to trust God and follow Christ if I didn’t trust God and follow Christ at this point in my life. So, I went before the Lord on a Sunday night and it seemed like I was sweating bullets. I told God that I felt like I was walking off a ledge. I reminded God that I was a poor boy from a poor area, that I had been an orphan and now I had a great job, a secure future, a nice home.
Have you ever seen that commercial where this happy suburbanite fellow says, “Hi I’m Stanley Johnson. I’ve got a great house; like my new car? I even belong to the local country club. How do I do it? I’m in debt up to my eyeballs!”
Well, I was in debt up to my eyeballs, not with banks and credit cards, but in debt to fear. I was in the shackles of a fear of losing security. My security was in status and possessions. And do you know what? Those can all go just like that.
