“If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples.
“The person who loves his father or mother more than me does not deserve to be my disciple. The person who loves a son or daughter more than me does not deserve to be my disciple.
But I don’t place any value on my own life. I want to finish the race I’m running. I want to carry out the mission I received from the Lord Jesus—the mission of testifying to the Good News of God’s kindness.
A man might have two wives and love one but not the other. Both wives might have children, and the firstborn son might belong to the wife that the man doesn’t love.
They said that they didn’t know their father and mother. They didn’t recognize their own brothers. They didn’t acknowledge their own children. But they obeyed your word and were faithful to the terms of your promise.
It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It’s because of him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ
They won the victory over him because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. They didn’t love their life so much that they refused to give it up.