It was true what Peter said: ‘We have left everything to follow you!’ Jesus had not asked them to. He asked them nothing more than He asks of us now, ‘Follow Me.’ But in reply to that call of Jesus, they had left everything behind.
Anyone who really wants to obey Jesus, will find how impossible it is to be truly His disciple and still keep control of an own little world.
I have seen so many young people - who wholeheartedly dedicated their lives to the Lord - slide back into the pleasures of this temporary life, because they did not want to pay the price for following Jesus. I often wondered if they had truly come to know the Lord or if they were merely carried away by religious enthusiasm. For those who truly follow Jesus, do not really offer anything – just look at Peter.
The apostle James says that friendship with the world means enmity against God. If ever this word has been proven right, then surely in our days. Whoever does not become radical in his dedication to the Lord, will be so claimed by the things of this world that God’s kingdom will become second-best and therefore of no significance.
Whoever has met Jesus in his life and wants to follow Him in the final days of this world, will find that he will be released from everything that binds him to this world. Yet, that is not a hermit’s life, for Jesus says that if we leave everything for Him, we will receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.