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Mark 10:17–22 (ESV)
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
I’m always amazed by people who are perfectionists. They are always analyzing every accomplishment and outcome in an effort to be and do better. Perfectionism is healthy when it leads to self-motivation to overcome adversity and achieve success but it’s unhealthy when it has a negative orientation to avoid failure and win the approval of others.
That’s a bit of what’s going on here with the rich young ruler who is asking a question regarding how he can be perfect. The young ruler wasn’t simply asking about how to get into heaven when he is asking Jesus about eternal life. What he is asking about was how he could find favor in the coming kingdom of God and gain this new life in the age to come.
In young rulers’ cultural context there were different answers regarding how to be a part of the coming kingdom of God, but all these answers centered on keeping the law; the Ten Commandments.
In response to the young ruler’s question, Jesus does speak of the Ten Commandments, but He only lists some of them, (5-9 to be exact.) The rich young ruler’s response was that he had kept all these commandments from his youth. You see, the rich young ruler wants to be perfect, and he is expecting Jesus to offer up a set of rules and regulations for him to observe and keep; rules and regulations just like the Pharisees or the Essenes advocated for the people in that context.
Jesus’ response would have caught this young ruler completely off guard as Jesus called for radical rethinking on the part of the young ruler by challenging him to give all of his material possessions. What Jesus is asking of the young ruler is to give up anything that might be a god-poser in place of God at the center of his heart and mind. Jesus was asking the young ruler to do was to put God first, to love the Lord above all other things and people. So in love, Jesus confronts the idol in his heart and told the young ruler to go and sell everything and give to the poor and then to follow Him.
That's not the answer the young ruler was expecting. He had a tight grip on his possessions, and he was unwilling to let them go so that he could follow Jesus and we’re told that the ruler left Jesus sad and dejected because he had great possessions.
Now please don’t read this and think that you must sell all your possessions in order to follow Jesus. That’s not the point of the passage. In fact, Jesus doesn’t often tell people to give up every material possession or relationship so that they can follow Him. When Jesus did ask such things of people, it was either so that they could freely be with Him and share in the kingdom work He was doing, or it was because, like the young ruler, those possessions or relationships had become an idol, a god-poser, in their lives.
Which leads to a fascinating and challenging question that we must ask ourselves today, “What might be holding you back in your relationship with Jesus?”
For each of us, the answer is different, and it may be different at different times in our lives. There are the obvious negative things that can displace Jesus from the center of our hearts; addictions, desires, or passions that we know are not pleasing to the Lord.
But it could also be other things, even good things that seek to take Jesus’ place at the center of our hearts; material possessions, concerns over financial holdings relating to our living condition or our future, or a variety of relationships in our lives.
The point of the passage and the point of the question is for us to take a serious look at our lives and see what might be holding us back as Jesus calls us to follow Him into the deep, rich, full, and perfect life that we find only in relationship with Him as His missional disciples in the kingdom of God.
How does the old song go? I have decided, to follow Jesus…, no holding back, no holding back.
Don’t let anything hold you back.
God bless you and know that you are constantly in my prayers!
Scott
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