We all know
that the Ten Commandments given by Moses were summed up into two by the Lord Jesus. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God
with all heart, with all your soul and with all your might and you shall love
your neighbors as yourself.” Firstly, God wants us to love Him with everything that
we are, and then we are to love our neighbors as we would love ourselves. These
two great commandments must be kept before us in our quest to fully experience
eternal life. This was in essence what Mark 10:17-22 is saying.
As Jesus was on
His way, a rich young man ran up to Him and knelt down and asked Him, “Good Teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is an absurd question. Nobody
ever needs to do something to receive an inheritance. It is given by virtue of a
person’s relationship. This man had begun with the assumption that one can do
something to gain eternal life. This is still the flaw of many today. We thought
that one can gain eternity by doing good things. But eternal life is granted by
virtue of one’s relationship with God, not by doing something to get it. The
answer the Lord gave shows that He was obviously re-directing that young man to
consider Him. He wanted the man to know that only God is good. And in calling Jesus
good, He was unwittingly encountering God.
This man was
obviously deceived by his thinking that he had kept the commandments of God, especially
those that had to do with loving one’s neighbors. He was cocksure that he had
done them since his youth when the Lord pointed them to him. Subtly Jesus
showed him that he had not. Seeing his heart, the Lord had deep love and compassion for him. He then told him to go and sell all that
he had, bless the poor, then come and follow Him. Mark tells us immediately his
countenance fell, and verse 22 tells us his response. “But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property." In this
statement we see an ironic humor. Would one be sorrowful if he had great wealth?
He knew instinctively, one cannot serve God and wealth at the same time. For deep
in his heart that young man had another god – his riches. With great wealth but without God we will be
sorrowful.
From the response
to the young man we see that the true test of whether he had love his neighbors
would be proven by his willingness to liquidate his wealth and give in support
of the poor. And the true test of his intention to inherit eternal life would
be found in his willingness to divest himself of everything to follow Christ. Obviously
he had failed both. And the lesson for us from this account is this: we must
keep divesting ourselves of the world and to keep on following the Lord.
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