Title: Who Holds Your Heart?/ Topic: Eternal Life

Today's Reading: Matthew 8; Matthew 9; Matthew 10

Scripture: Matthew 10:37-39
37 "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Observation: Jesus uses the most important relationships in our lives to demonstrate the kind of commitment to God that is necessary to receive eternal life. God will take second place to no one. We must love him above even our most precious family members. Parents and children cannot be more important to us than God. If we had to choose between the two, what would we pick? The question is not hypothetical. We must make the choice to serve God no matter what anyone we love does. Jesus makes it clear that some people (maybe us) will have relatives who turn against them and even report them to authorities because they are Christians. We need to be prepared for that. But Jesus also makes a promise to us: If we lose our life for his sake we will find true life. If we choose this life and love of family over love of him we will lose our eternal life.

Application: Searching our hearts is necessary. If our children decide to serve themselves instead of God, will we stand with God, not compromising his standards or will we compromise in order to have peace in the family and closeness with our children? Would we recant our faith in God if our children turned us over to authorities because of our faith? This does still happen in some countries of the world. We haven't been faced with that extreme here in the United States but we need to check our hearts and determine to choose God over everything else, including those we love the most.

Prayer: I love you Lord. I want to make sure that I love you more than anything or anybody. Help me to test my heart so that I know I would stand for you in any circumstance, even giving up those who are precious to me in this life, in order to choose eternal life with you who have sacrificed everything for me. None of my family has done that and they cannot take your place. I pray for each of my loved ones that they will have this same level of commitment to you so that I will not have to be separated from them in this life or the next. Work in us all Lord.
This I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.