May 2

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. — Gen 12:1 BSB

All noble life begins with sacrifice. To reach something higher, we must give up what is lower. We must leave behind our own “country” before we can enter God’s. We can only have the better by giving up the lesser. God calls us to leave the old behind in order to step into the new. This doesn’t always mean leaving our literal country or family, but in a spiritual sense, it’s just like that. If we want to follow Christ, we have to let go of the world and go with Him.

There’s a tendency today to try to follow Christ without truly leaving the world behind. Too many think they can journey to the Promised Land without ever leaving Ur. But that’s impossible. We can only reach the land of promise by leaving everything behind and following Christ wherever He leads. This means we must give up this world as our treasure and embrace the heavenly inheritance. The rich man who came to Jesus couldn’t let go of his earthly possessions, and because of that, he couldn’t receive the heavenly riches.