“And Jesus answered and said, ‘Verily, I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29 – 30)

Now there is a certain kind of compromised Christian for whom the first part of this passage (v. 29) is the “hard saying.” The cares of this world do choke out spiritual interest. But there is another kind of Christian, the pious, otherworldly kind, for whom the hard saying is actually found in v. 30. It is as hard to give house and lands to some Christians as it is to take them away from others.

Imagine a glorious mansion on one hundred acres on a scenic stretch of the Oregon coast, and then imagine yourself having been assigned the task of giving it to an otherworldly prayer warrior. The Lord wanted him to be in a position to paint some glorious water colors, but only after conducting his prayer walks on the beach. He nevertheless was struggling with the whole concept because the guilt made it difficult to hold the brush.

The challenge is this: how can we hold things in the palm of our hand without those things themselves growing hands that can hold us in a death grip? The Lord promised that we could handle serpents and not be bitten (Mark 16:18), and mammon is certainly one of those serpents.

American Milk and Honey, pp. 151 – 153