The Rich and the
Kingdom of God
17 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?” 18 “Why do
you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 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.’” 20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all
these I have kept since I was a boy.” 21 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 heaver. Then come follow me.”
While reading this passage, God revealed to me that there is
a lot in my own life that I need to let go of in order for God to fully use me.
I need to let go of myself and let God do work in me. There seem to be idols in
areas of my life that I have been holding onto and not really letting go of because of comfort and trust. Idols are anything in my life that occupy a
place that should be occupied by God alone. An idol is something that holds
such a controlling position in my life that it moves and rouses and attracts me
so easily that I give my time, attention, and money to it effortlessly. The
more God spoke to me through this scripture, the more I needed to repent.
In Mark 10, the young man wants to know what he needs to do
in order to obtain eternal life. He ran up to Jesus and felt on his knees. He
was ready to do anything he could in order to learn the ways to obtain eternal
life. Jesus gave him a list of commandments he needed to keep. The young man’s response
was, “I have kept these commandments since I was a boy.” He sounded like a
pretty good and noble young man. However, there was one thing he needed to do.
There was one thing Jesus wanted him to do. Jesus’ request was that
he sell all his possessions and give to the poor. The young man did not like
Jesus’ mandate. He wasn’t willing to let go of the things Jesus was asking of him.
Why? Perhaps his trust and heart were on his possessions. The way of Jesus was
definitely not the center of his life. There was something else taking Jesus’
place.
His idols were his wealth and his possessions. It was
something he was not willing to let go of. As the Holy Spirit was bringing
conviction to me about having idols in my life through this passage, I began to
truly think about it and asked myself how to know what these idols were. I asked
my self these questions: What is it that is controlling my life? What do I
worry about the most? How much time to I spend with Jesus? What do I do when my
day goes poorly?
The answer to any of these questions helped me come to the
conclusion that Jesus was definitely not at the center of my life. Jesus was
not the first response. He was neither my priority nor my number one. As I
continued to pray, there was pride in areas of my life that I was not willing
to give away. These idols were affecting the way I worship, the way I serve God
and my relationship with others. I did not want to be like this young man that
thought he had everything figured out. I didn’t want to reject Jesus and walk
away
Matthew 6:21 says, “Wherever your treasure is, there, the
desires of your heart will also be.” I needed to find out where my heart was
and unfortunately it wasn’t fully with Jesus. I want to be able to let go of my
idols and things I’m holding on to so that I can let God use me more — all of
me. There are many idols that can creep into our hearts — pride, lust, money,
envy, relationships — idols that we cling to and cannot let go of. We feel
comfortable and we do not want to let Jesus reveal these idols to us.
My prayer is for God to take away anything that is taking
His place in my life. I want to follow Him with my whole heart. I don’t want
anything to be in the way for God to reveal himself fully to me. If Jesus asks
anything of me I want to be able to surrender everything at His feet. May God
help me to always be faithful to Him and to trust Him whole-heartedly. I want
to be able to follow Him unconditionally, to let go of myself and seek more of
His presence.
Blessings,
Israel
No comments:
Post a Comment