One day, a man came to Jesus and asked Him what he must do to possess eternal life. "And He said to him, Why do you ask Me about the perfectly and essentially good? There is only One Who is good [perfectly and essentially]-God. If you would enter into the Life, you must continually keep the commandments. He said to Him, What sort of commandments? [Or, which ones?] And Jesus answered, You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. The young man said, I have observed all these from my youth; what still do I lack?" Matthew 19:17-20.
Here's this guy, wanting to possess Eternal Life. He comes to Jesus wondering what he must do. Jesus gives him the answer, and so far he thinks, "Oh yeah! I've got this. I've done all of these things since I was young." But then something happens... Jesus tells him of the one thing he must do that is going to be more than difficult for this man. He must sell what he has and give it to the poor.
Some of us wouldn't think of this as a hard task. Personally, material items aren't a huge thing to me, but to this man, they meant a lot! The Bible refers to him as a rich man, then goes on to say that it's very hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
When I read this verse this morning about selling what I have and giving to the poor, I thought, "Well sure, if I saw Jesus in person like this man did, then I'd certainly go do that! What's that guys problem?"
I know, pretty wrong of me to have that as my first thought, but it's the truth.
What I had to evaluate about this, though, was the fact that Jesus is with me right now, and He is telling me to leave behind what this world has to offer and follow Him.
My question is, "What am I allowing to hold me back?" Is it physical looks that I'm holding onto? Popularity? Comfort? Dreams?
What in my life am I putting a higher priority on then my relationship with Jesus?
There's one man in the Bible that comes to mind when I think of giving my most precious gift to Jesus. His name is Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham that He would be the father of many nations. This meant that Abraham would have a son. The problem was the fact that he had to wait twenty years before this promise became Abraham's reality. When the promise finally was given to him, though, eventually God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham's promised son had finally arrived, and now God wanted him to give him back to God!
Personally, I would've thought, "You've got to be kidding!" But it doesn't say that Abraham did that. He instead loved God enough to do as God said even when it didn't make sense!
We know the story, and just in time, God brought a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice instead of sacrificing Isaac, but he didn't know that God was going to do that. He was willing to give up everything for God; even if it meant giving up his dearly loved son.
Would I do that if God asked me to? Would I give up the most dearly loved promise God has ever given me because my love for God is greater?
There's a song called "I'm Still Yours" that I'm going to attach at the end of this devotional. It talks about if we lost it all, would our hands stay lifted? These few verses from Matthew 19 have made me evaluate my priorities! I'm finding that I need to ask God to bring the change in my priorities so that He is truly more important than anything else to me!
Dear Heavenly Father,
In these few verses, You've revealed to me that I still have a long way to go! I see that often times, my priorities are not what they should be. I get my focus on what the world has to offer instead of leaving it all behind to follow You. Please, bring a change in me. Change me into someone who loves You more than any popularity, dream, worldly thing, or even another person.
In Jesus Name.
Amen.
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