For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it.

"Yes," Jesus said to them, "and I tell you that those who leave home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and for the gospel,

will receive much more in this present age. They will receive a hundred times more houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields---and persecutions as well; and in the age to come they will receive eternal life.

"Yes," Jesus said to them, "and I assure you that anyone who leaves home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God

will receive much more in this present age and eternal life in the age to come."

However, as the scripture says, "What no one ever saw or heard, what no one ever thought could happen, is the very thing God prepared for those who love him."

Another man, who was a disciple, said, "Sir, first let me go back and bury my father."

"Follow me," Jesus answered, "and let the dead bury their own dead."

"Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be my disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be my disciples.

Those who do not take up their cross and follow in my steps are not fit to be my disciples.

"Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.

No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so.

Not only those things; I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ

"Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers.

Everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever holds out to the end will be saved.

"Happy are you when people hate you, reject you, insult you, and say that you are evil, all because of the Son of Man!

If you belonged to the world, then the world would love you as its own. But I chose you from this world, and you do not belong to it; that is why the world hates you.

And I myself will show him all that he must suffer for my sake."

Happy are you if you are insulted because you are Christ's followers; this means that the glorious Spirit, the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

For they set out on their trip in the service of Christ without accepting any help from unbelievers.

But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants bore grain: some had one hundred grains, others sixty, and others thirty."

And the seeds sown in the good soil stand for those who hear the message and understand it: they bear fruit, some as much as one hundred, others sixty, and others thirty."

Once a man came to Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what good thing must I do to receive eternal life?"

Then the King will say to the people on his right, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world.

These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life."