When we leave some important thing behind because God asks us to, He isn’t asking us to give up the necessities of life. It may cost us the extravagances of life sometimes. But we have to decide where we want to be rich. Do we want to make our sacrifices while investing in eternity? Or, do we want our extravagances now? If we know it is God and we know He is asking us to do something really scary, we also know that He WILL take good care of us.

But, how about this much more important issue of growing in the character of Christ? We don’t just get our financial needs met. As a matter of fact, it becomes one of the least benefits of putting our trust in God. Once money is put in its proper place and God moves into full control of the daily activities of our lives, we really start being blessed with the true riches. No amount of money can take the place of spiritual blessings. Moving into God’s plan is better than all the riches the world has to offer.

Acts 4:13 (NIV) When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Exactly when did all this courage happen? It started happening several years before when Jesus came by and said: “Come, follow Me.” From that moment on they were constantly with Jesus. Was that a good thing? Sure they left some things behind. It is possible they may have become pretty wealthy according to their current standards had they stayed with their jobs. But, they would have missed out on helping start the worldwide Christian movement.