Mark 10

Key verse: Mark 10:29

Big idea: True wealth comes from the Son of God.

If your house was on fire and you could only take one thing out, what would it be? Think for a minute about it before you move forward. One of the clearest ways to find out what we value is to see what we would fear losing. It will set our priorities because we will act in ways to protect the things we fear losing and will invest less time and energy in the things that are 'acceptable losses.' Unfortunately, our instincts about what is most valuable break down sometimes. We are tempted to be more concerned with losing the things that we must lose - money, health, influence - than we are with losing the things that are truly precious. 

Peter told Jesus that they had left behind everything to follow Him. In Peter's case, this was basically literal. He left his nets still full of fish and turned his back on the family business to fish for men with Jesus. Jesus' response was that by leaving things behind for Him, they had not really left anything behind at all. They would be rewarded with far more than they lost and the things they would gain, whether they ever saw a return on their investment in this life, would be repaid by God Himself.

Those who seem to have much may really have nothing, while those who seem to have lost it all may really have everything. The first will be last and the last will be first. If we know that this is true, we ought to realize that the material things which we prioritize are really worthless and that the only things which really matter come from Jesus.

Discussion idea: Jim Elliot famously wrote "He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." What does that mean? What things in your life could you give up which you could not keep anyway?

Prayer focus: Ask God to realign your priorities.