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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
Just then a man came up
to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask Me about
what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to
enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he
inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You
shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall
not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your
neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,”
the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you
want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
When the young man heard
this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to His
disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the
kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew 19:16-24
As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up
to Him and fell on his knees before Him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I
do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No
one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder,
you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false
testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have
kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One
thing you lack,” He said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away
sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to His
disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were amazed at His words. But
Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is
rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 10:17-25
A certain ruler asked Him, “Good teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus answered. “No
one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit
adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false
testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
“All these I have kept since I was a boy,”
he said.
When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You
still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you
will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
When he heard this, he became very sad,
because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for
the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom
of God.”
Luke 18:18-25
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
How many people in the world feel they will
find their way to heaven by way of their works?
Too many, I’m afraid.
I’ve heard comments made through the years
where people have espoused the goodness of someone who was known to be a
non-believer by complimenting the noble way in which they lived, the great
successes they had while alive, and/or the charity that they brought other
people. This would be followed up with something like “they’re up there now,
looking down on us” or other words alluding to the belief that person was in
heaven because of their goodness.
Surely good people don’t go to hell, do
they? This would be a question many people who are of the world would (and do)
ask.
Well, as we have seen in so many other
instances, the Bible holds all the answers we need. In fact, there are few life
questions we can’t find the answer to in the scriptures. That’s what makes God’s
holy word an absolute necessity and the reason why the Holy Bible has been, is,
and will always be the greatest and most esteemed book of all time.
As we turn to the esteemed and divine Word
today, we find Jesus getting to this question of being good and whether or not
this is enough to enter heaven’s kingdom. The spark for His teaching is a
question that comes to Him from a rich ruler, trying to find out if he has
qualified himself for eternal life. Here was his question, drawing from Mark’s
Gospel for the purpose of this devotion:
“Good
teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Note here that the man, identified as a
ruler in Luke’s account, wants to know what deeds he must perform in order to
live forever. Keep in mind that the teachings of Jesus about the salvation to
come through Him was still very new and not everyone had heard the Gospel or
even understood what it all meant at this time.
Given this, you can see where this was a
teaching moment for Jesus, something He always embraced. In fact, the man even
identified Jesus as “Good teacher.”
Interestingly enough, Jesus doesn’t get
into the question first but rather the man calling Him good. His words have
some shock factor to them:
“Why
do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.”
On the surface, this might appear that
Jesus is not calling Himself good but we know this is not true. He and His
Father are one and so since God alone is good then Jesus is likewise good. What
Jesus doesn’t say to the ruler is that He and the Father were one in the same.
Why didn’t He say this?
Because it would have taken away from the
main point he wanted to make in regard to the matter of goodness and man. In
Matthew’s Gospel, the man actually asks Jesus what good thing he needed to do
to inherit eternal life and so although the man called Jesus the “Good Teacher”,
he also was thinking within himself about the need to do something good in
order to gain heaven, something that we know Jesus perceived because of the
direction of His teaching. But before He moved forward, Jesus wanted the ruler
to know that no person was good and so no one could get to heaven simply
because they were good enough. There was a greater good, one that transcended all,
and that good was God.
Back to the scriptures. The ruler had asked
Jesus for some good things he could do to gain eternal life and so Jesus
started to provide recommendations. Look at Matthew’s account of this exchange:
(Jesus
said) “If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which
ones?” he inquired.
Jesus
replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not
steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and
‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Here Jesus tries to show the man how
impossible it is for anyone to truly claim they are good enough to earn eternal
life. It would mean someone would have to be perfectly righteous and sin-free,
someone who has never violated any command that God had ever given. Jesus lists
a few of those decrees, all but one from what we know as the ten commandments
that God gave Moses to institute with the Israelites at Mount Sinai during
their exodus to the Promised Land (Exodus 20:1-17). The last command Jesus gave
was drawn from the Book of Leviticus (19:18), a secondary commandment Jesus
would highlight when asked about the greatest commandment in the law (Matthew
22:36-39) which He said was:
Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
Now, ask yourself this:
Has anyone outside of Jesus ever kept
everyone of God’s command perfectly in their life?
I seriously doubt it.
I mean, I could see where someone will not
have murdered, committed adultery, or stolen in life but false testimony about
a neighbor, honoring father and mother, or loving a neighbor as oneself?
I have a head time believing that a person
hasn’t violated one of those latter three or a combination of them but as we
see, the ruler tries to convince Jesus that he has passed that part of the
eternal life screening, saying:
“Teacher,
all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
I really love that Jesus didn’t rebuke Him
on the spot. He certainly could of for surely He knew this ruler was failing to
be honest with himself, let alone Jesus. But Jesus didn’t condemn the man.
Rather, in Mark’s account, we read where He “loved him.”
I think this is powerful and something we
could easily gloss over but shouldn’t. For how often have we tried to get over
on Jesus ourselves, perhaps coming before Him less than honest about the sins
we have committed. Frankly, our actions deserve His judgment but so often we
get His love instead. And even in those times when He corrects us, fulfilling
His role as our heavenly Father as any parent would for their child, He
disciplines out of love, out of a longing for us to be the people He desires
for us to be, a people who reflect the fact that they were created in His
image.
Well, Jesus, having heard the ruler’s claim
to have kept all of the aforementioned commandments, ups the ante for the ruler
in a way that finally exposes a limit to what the rich man is willing to do to
gain salvation. Here’s what He tells the affluent ruler to do:
“One
thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
Uh, oh.
Remember this teaching of Jesus back when
He gave His Sermon on the Mount?
“Do
not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy,
and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break
in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
“No
one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or
you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God
and money.” Matthew 6:19-21, 24
Essentially, Jesus is challenging anyone
who reads this passage to make a choice and you only have two options: God or
money.
If you choose God and follow His will and
way while fulfilling His purposes, then you will store up treasures in heaven,
treasures that can’t be taken or perish. There will be no need for worrying
about what the world has to offer for you will realize that eternal life
through following Jesus vice money is a greater reward, one unmatched or
unrivaled by anything the world offers.
If you choose money, then you have opted to
make the treasures of the earth your focus and you will allow your material
possessions to possess you. Your heart will be attached to those possessions more
than the God who blessed you with them and that bond will keep you from ever
considering parting with them. You will choose money over God.
So which did the man choose?
His body language and subsequent action gave
him away.
At
this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
It was a sad ending to the encounter. The
man had a chance to gain salvation through dying to self, taking up his cross,
and following Jesus but he was too entrenched in the world and his money to
pull up his roots. Equally sad, the rich ruler wasn’t the first who was
unwilling to surrender all to the One who would surrender all for Him and He
wasn’t the last. Today, there are countless people holding onto their fame and
riches, separate from Jesus and unwilling to give up their treasures on earth
to gain treasures in heaven. It’s little wonder that Jesus finishes the matter
with the final word, saying to His disciples (and to us as well):
“How
hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!...It is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the
kingdom of God.”
In the end translation, we come into the
world naked and without anything. We will leave this life, unable to take
anything with us. With this, where is the sensibility in having all this world
has to offer at the expense of losing a chance of eternity which is by far the
greater reward?
Or put another way, with the matter of good
verses reward within, Jesus asks:
“What
good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Matthew
16:26
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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