So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

Mark 10:29-30

“There were compensations to be experienced in the present age—along with its troubles—and there was compensation in the age to come as well.

With regard to the present age, the reward was to come in the form of rich personal relationships. And how often the servants of Christ have proved the truth of that guarantee. Leaving behind their earthly families, traveling often to the remote quarters of the globe, they have discovered new relationships created by the shared gospel of Jesus Christ. In those souls whom they have won to Christ, in those to whom they have ministered the truth, they have found new brothers and sisters, new mothers and children. Homes have been opened to them and lands laid at their service as though they owned them. And the depths of the spiritual communion established in this way with men have often seemed to be indeed a hundredfold more rich than those ties which Christ’s servants have left behind. No doubt it was in the spirit of these very words of Jesus that Paul greets “Rufus…and his mother and mine” (Rom 16:13).

Zane Hodges, Grace in Eclipse

This passage brought me to remember friends who are scattered over the globe for the purpose of making known Jesus’s message of life. I pray this would be their rich experience; the present reward of new friendships in Christ. I encourage you to pray for such servants today and to send them a note of encouragement.—Brad