One of the saddest – and most telling – portions of scripture is found in the eighteenth chapter of Luke. Jesus is approached by a ruler (hint: he’s powerful enough to be in authority) who has kept all the commandments (hint: he’s good enough to keep the commandments) to find out if he’s checked all the boxes (hint: he’s smart enough to cover all the bases).
This happened right on the heels of Jesus teaching about a widow who wasn’t smart enough to know when to bother a judge, a tax collector who wasn’t good enough to look toward heaven, and entertaining children who weren’t powerful enough to hold any authority.
The contrast is striking enough that I could probably stop writing, and you could probably stop reading, and we could both definitely stand convicted.
But let’s dive in just a bit deeper, okay? I believe there’s more that the Spirit wants to highlight for us.
In Luke 18:22, Jesus graciously reveals the one thing that this powerful, good, and smart man lacked. Most read this as a statement about how bad it is to have money or big houses or fancy cars, but it’s about none of those.
Jesus is making a statement about not having the man’s heart.
In fact, I don’t think Jesus cares about what we possess nearly as much as He cares about what possesses us.
In Matthew’s version of this encounter, he tells us that the man went away sad when Jesus asked him to sell all he had because “he had great wealth” (see Matthew 19:22).
Maybe we should say that great wealth had him, yes? And yet, the part of the story that always gets me isn’t the man’s sadness or his refusal to do what Jesus asked of him.
What gets me is what Jesus did when the man walked away.
Nothing.
As a leader of a local church, I can relate to the pressure to keep people from walking away, and trust me, the pressure only goes up when you know that they “have great wealth.” Many of us would have run after that man and begged him to reconsider. To give Jesus – and our church – one more chance.
We may even have lowered the ask.
“I’m sorry! Did I say, sell all you have? How about 90%? 70%? What if you just gave 10%?”
To be clear, if this man did give 10%, he would have given more than 95% of churchgoers today because 5% tithe, and the average Christian gives 2.5% of his or her income. As a comparison, during the Great Depression that number was 3.3%. (source)
Christians gave more during the Great Depression. Wow.
But since Jesus wasn’t making a point about money, I’ll stop with that and make the real shocking statement:
If we have to be begged to follow Jesus, we’ll have to be begged to keep following Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t negotiate the entrance fee to the kingdom.
Jesus doesn’t negotiate the entrance fee to the kingdom. Share on XIt will cost all, and those who aren’t possessed by their possessions will pay it.
Those who have tried everything else and found only emptiness will give all that emptiness away so that they might find a life that is abundant and full (see John 10:10).
Are you one of them? If you are, you may – like Peter – find yourself reminding Jesus of your sacrifice.
That means that Jesus’ response is a promise for you can cling to as well.
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30 NIV)
Instead of begging someone to follow whose heart wasn’t in it, Jesus turned to those who had His heart and simply said, “I see your sacrifice, and you will receive blessings from me now, and eternity with me later.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to be begged to jump on that offer.
Both feet. All in. Let’s go!
Photo by Flow Clark on Unsplash
