The Price of Walking with God
Are you willing to have your beliefs criticized, attacked, and mocked? Walking with God won’t be easy, but as Steph Nickel reminds us, spending eternity with Him is worth more than any cost we’ll ever be called to pay.
Have you ever had a bad experience while sharing your faith? Please comment below. Contact us at HopeStreamRadio if you have any questions.
The Landowner’s Son
Today I will look at excerpts from Matthew 21:33-44:
“‘Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants . . . And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son . . . when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” And they . . . killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death . . . ‘“. . . The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.’”
The gospel is called the good news and it is. It’s the most incredible news ever presented to mankind. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fully God and fully man, came to Earth, lived a sinless, perfect life, and then took the punishment for the sins of others. He died a horrific death and was buried. But death could not hold Him, and He rose victorious over both sin and death. Jesus knew what was still to come when He shared this parable with His hearers. We can now understand what it meant, but we have the benefit of hindsight. Even His closest followers didn’t really understand what He had come to accomplish until after the fact.
The Cost of Walking With God
Even those who would not become His followers had the insight to realize He was talking about them. Those who claimed to be leaders of the people had, over the centuries, killed those whom God had sent, those who had proclaimed the message of God. And when the Landowner sent His Son, they sought to gain the upper hand by putting Him to death.
This doesn’t just describe those who lived thousands of years ago. Consider 21st century world news. There are thousands of people, millions even, who are seeking to silence the voice of Christianity. Some are trying to silence the message by killing believers in Jesus Christ. Others are shouting insults at us at the top of their voices, calling us uninformed, uneducated, mentally ill.
They say the Bible is not the Word of God. They claim that Jesus was not an historical figure—and if He was, He was either simply an ordinary man or a lunatic who deceived the people. Though He conquered death all those years ago, they are trying to crucify Him all over again.
hopestreamradio · There Is A Price
The Landowner Will Return
A number of years ago, the message seemed to be “commit your life to the Lord and everything will be great.”To this day, there are those who believe that if we have right standing with God, we will be prosperous in every area of life. I don’t believe the Word of God teaches these things.
As our pastor pointed out recently, genuine followers of Christ will experience opposition from those who don’t believe. They don’t like our message. They don’t want to hear about the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, as it says in John 14:6. They don’t want to consider the possibility that they must humble themselves before God. The tenants in this parable craved power and position. They forgot that what they had was not their own. It belonged to the landowner, and one day he would return and claim what was his.
The gospel truly is the good news, the best news ever. It brings assurance, joy, and peace. We can hold onto it when everything else seems to be crumbling around us. We must come to know these truths and we must seek to teach them to our children.
The Incredible Journey
But the world is not a friendly place for believers—some places more so than others. There is a cost to walking with God. A friend of mine, a fellow writer, is considering what I believe to be an important project, but she is prayerfully and cautiously counting the cost. She knows she will encounter opposition should she decide to proceed. She is concerned not only for herself but also for her family and friends.
Are we willing to have our beliefs questioned and criticized? Are we willing to rest confident in the Lord and His Word even when others are slinging hurtful, hateful insults our way—or worse? Are we willing to watch our children suffer for their faith?
It’s not all sunshine and roses, but walking with God on the incredible journey He lays out before us and spending eternity in His presence is worth infinitely more than any cost we’ll ever be called to pay. After all, the Son knew what the tenants were going to do. He came willingly, knowing it was the only way to secure our place in God’s kingdom.
Steph Nickel
Steph Beth Nickel is eclectically interested and eclectically involved. In all she does, Steph seeks to nurture and inspire. She is currently working on the first book in a nonfiction series. Nurture and Inspire LOVE is a compilation of the first devotionals she wrote for HopeStreamRadio.
Steph is a freelance writer and editor. She is the coauthor of Paralympian Deb Willows’ award-winning memoir, Living Beyond My Circumstances, published by Castle Quay Books. Deb and Steph are working on a follow-up book.
You can visit her website, stephbethnickel.com, to learn more about her.
Visit Steph’s contributor’s page or at Steph Nickel’s Eclectic Interests.
More Podcasts to Enjoy
More Blogs
Why Would Anyone Want to be My Friend?
Images Courtesy of:
Wine Presses- Blick Pixel
Cemetary- Devanath
Stairway- Unsplash
Beach- Tookapic
Leave a Reply