How Much is Enough?

 

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question: “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him.  “Only God is truly good.  But to answer your question, you know the commandments:  ‘You must not commit adultery.  You must not murder.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honor your father and mother.’”  The man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”  When Jesus heard his answer, he said, “There is still one thing you haven’t done.  Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  But when the man heard this he became very sad, for he was very rich.  When Jesus saw this, he said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!  In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”  Those who heard this said, “Then who in the world can be saved?”  He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible with God.”  Peter said, “We’ve left our homes to follow you.”  “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.”                 Luke 18:18-30

The painting of Christ with the rich young ruler reveals the angst-filled pathos of not having a clue when it comes to the destiny of our souls.  The young man asked the elephant-in-the-room question everyone else was thinking…uhhh, Jesus, what’s gonna happen to me in the long run…and what should I do about it?

The men surrounding Jesus are listening intently.  You can see skepticism, fascination, and true holding-your-breath-for-the-answer-honesty in their faces.  After all, you don’t throw-off the question of eternity like you’d discard a candy wrapper.  This was important…even a rich man, with the world at his disposal, couldn’t resist asking for insight on eternal life.

Jesus pointed the young man to what’s written in Scripture about obeying God’s commands, honesty, kindness, generosity, and so on.  But the young man pressed deeper, and Jesus obliged him, and went right for the underbelly of the issue; his answer was, quite pointedly:  What’s the most important thing you wouldn’t want to give up?  The answer welling-up in the young man’s soul made him sad, very sad!  How can you let go of what possesses you?

Peter, (to the left of Jesus in the painting) is standing there with hands unfolded in a questioning motion.  The artist, I believe, is giving Peter’s voice that hopeful edge, as he’s reminding Jesus how he and the other disciples left all they had to follow…was that enough?  Jesus’ answer isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card, a Christian believer’s ID you can present at the pearly gates.  It’s more of a reminder that the final judgment on each of us is in God’s hands.  It is the Father who looks into each person’s heart and judges, repaying reward or punishment with absolute righteousness.

For You Today

The question the rich young man asked is not a bad one if you ask it with empty hands and open heart.  But a better question might be:  Lord, I have decided nothing I have belongs to me…what should I do with it; how can I follow you today?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Unconvinced and More Than Enough

[1] Images:   WikimediaCommons - ©2010 Andrey Mironov   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Choosing

[1]

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Someone came to Jesus with this question:  “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  “Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied.  “There is only One who is good.  But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.”  “Which ones?” the man asked.  And Jesus replied:  “‘You must not murder.  You must not commit adultery.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied.  “What else must I do?”  Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.  Matthew 19:16-22

On the pages of Scripture, we find a commonality of human experience, namely, except for Jesus, there isn't a sinless character in the Bible.  I'm glad we see the "warts" of such heroes as Moses, Abraham and Peter.  Each of them experienced that what's the use feeling from time to time.  Aimlessness, or purposelessness, is tied very closely to man's innate need to know and experience the presence of God.  It is the lack of that close relationship with God that causes the void in life.

An unbeliever experiencing that void is understandable.  His need can be filled by being born again.  But, what about when a professing Christian is aimless?  Does that mean he really isn't saved?  That may be so in some cases.  In many more it is simply a signal that the believer has dropped the ball in his relationship with the Lord.  God is never the one who drops the ball!  God is our purpose and reason for living.  Without Him as our focus, we tire of life's toys and distractions and begin to feel empty.

The common human experience is that nobody is immune to the void.  In the account of this rich young ruler, it was that restless feeling that there was something he'd left undone with his life that prompted this question.  It's very much like attending your wife's high school reunion . . . unless you went to the same school, somehow you just don't fit in. 

Jesus pointed the man to all God had said about behaving yourself.  But the man wasn't content with superficial rules-keeping; he'd done that all his life.  He was rich, obedient, morally-sound; he had everything you need for a bell-ringer of a life!  But, inside there was no peace.  We can't be fulfilled outside of a close, loving fellowship with God. 

The tragedy of our current culture which is obsessed with booze, materialism, Hollywood glitz and sex, is that the frantic race for a higher high, a longer lasting popularity, and different experience is exactly what rocker Mick Jagger howled in his Rolling Stones days:  I try, and I try, and I try, and I try; I can't get no satisfaction!  Grammar aside, the man expressed what the whole world should know, apart from Jesus, you can't get no satisfaction!

Those who've never been born again have never known genuine satisfaction.  Those who have, should know better than to slip away from that close fellowship.  But we do! And the reality about emptiness is that we choose it.  Jesus wanted the ruler to choose a relationship with Himself.  The only requirement was to remove whatever stood between.  The man had already dealt with the one thing that trips most of us - pride!  Just coming to Jesus with his questions shows the ruler wasn't prideful.  The problem was his materialism.  When confronted with that choice - Jesus or his wealth - the ruler was sad.  He was sad at having glimpsed the one thing that would have given him peace (what he was really seeking) and choosing the opposite. 

We are strange people indeed, when we choose death over life.  Pagans choose to remain separated from God eternally.  Believers, who have tasted the goodness of fellowship with God, sometimes choose to wallow in the emptiness of unbelief. 

For You Today

Reality is that you cannot have new life if you refuse to let go of the old. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Heinrich Hofmann Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons     Unless noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

Failure

[1]

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question:  “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him.  “Only God is truly good.  But to answer your question, you know the commandments:  ‘You must not commit adultery.  You must not murder.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honor your father and mother.’”  The man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”  When Jesus heard his answer, he said, “There is still one thing you haven’t done.  Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  But when the man heard this he became very sad, for he was very rich.  When Jesus saw this, he said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!  In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”  Those who heard this said, “Then who in the world can be saved?”  He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible with God.”  Peter said, “We’ve left our homes to follow you.”  “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.”                       Luke 18:18-30

One reason skeptics have always sought ways to discredit Jesus’ divinity is the obvious flaw in their wishy-washy lack of faith and the obvious discomfort felt over having to deal with someone who uncovers the soft underbelly of their weak argument.  What’s really at stake for the skeptic is the risk of being uncovered as a failure.  Ouch!

This rich young ruler had a terrible insecurity about his life’s path and if he was on the right track.  He came to Jesus for advice, or, more likely, simple affirmation that he really was a good man and had nothing to worry about.  His was the garden variety, bland and ambiguous blur of non-faith that wants I’m OK; You’re OK to rule the day.  His question was begging a pacifying placebo; just tell me I’m ok so I can feel good and not worry about this thing on my insides that’s eating my lunch day after stinking day!  But Jesus never settles for a good feeling; He’s all about the truth that sets one free[2].

Even human psychiatrists know better than to tell you what to do.  A main principle of psychiatry is that the answers we seek to our deepest questions are already locked within our minds; a psychological helper is one who comes alongside to help uncover what you already know.  And that is the dark truth the rich young ruler did not want to face.  He understood, firstly that he had ignored how his wealth had changed him, enabled him to avoid the poor.  His soul craved goodness (that’s why he raised that issue when he went to Jesus), but he was deeply afraid it was out of his reach.  Jesus reflected that fear back to him, and the mirror revealed a not-too-pretty truth…the young man saw just how tied he was to his riches (which are transitory, a mere mist that will fade), and how uncommitted he was to the reality of eternity.  He trusted his money more than his Creator.  It is no wonder he walked away dejected and broken, all the fingers pointing at his failure were attached to his own hands!

For You Today

If you’ve stayed this long with me today, and if you haven’t confessed your love of money recently, you may be avoiding the mirror. 

Let Jesus hold the truth mirror up in the rich young man’s story; it’s not pretty, but it’s not failure.  The only real failure in you or me is refusing to look at the truth.  But if you trust Him enough to let Him show you what’s deep-down inside you, that truth will set you free

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

 

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of  Pixabay.com     Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

[2] John 8:32

More Than Enough

[1]

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord.  But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”  “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked.  “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”  “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.  And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.  Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you.  Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.”  So she did as she was told.  Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.  Soon every container was full to the brim!  “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.  “There aren’t any more!” he told her.  And then the olive oil stopped flowing.  When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”                              2 Kings 4:1-7

Scripture goes into great detail to make the point that faith requires little in the way of wealth, health, or strength as the world sees such.  The widow of one of Elisha’s prophet band had nothing to her name but a flask of olive oil, and the wolves were at the door.  When Elisha delivered the Word of the Lord to her she did what she was told.  Faith in God is always a matter of obedience, even in the face of great odds, or little understanding. 

The widow’s mite, an offering of less than a penny’s value by a woman who had less than poverty to live-on, is often held up as the example of true Christian stewardship.  Heaven’s standard for judging your offering is never a matter of how much you give, but what you have left to keep.  

And while that’s so, faith is not the sole possession of those on the margins.  We must also see that the size of your portfolio never determines if your faith is great, puny, or non-existent; sometimes those who are rich, strong, and well-placed in society are also people of great faith.  Job was rich, but was also a man of intense, durable faith.  In fact, he was among the richest, healthiest, and most respected men of his time.  John Wesley had fortunes pass into and out of his hands in his lifetime.  But, as a true “man of God” those fortunes found ways to bless those less fortunate. 

Jesus warned about the trap riches can be to your spiritual health:

·      the rich young ruler preferred his money rather than eternal life

·      the successful farmer built bigger barns to store his biggest crop ever, rather than sharing with his neighbors

·      The rich man (Dives) ignored Lazarus the beggar right on his doorstep.

But sometimes I believe we must be put in difficult circumstances for us to see how relying on God (faith) is our biggest need.   And that was the entire point of Jesus’ teaching in each of the three stories:

The rich young ruler, successful farmer, and cold-hearted Dives all trusted their wealth to carry them into a comfortable life.  They were wrong; the allure of riches comes with a hook – a hook that sets in your soul and yanks it far from the Heavenly courts above!

For You Today

It’s not wrong to have the blessing of money…God can do great things through people who are generous and also listening for the Spirit’s direction how to use what little or great blessings He’s put in your hand. 

But those people for whom money has become their God, the question they really need to hear is, have you EVER seen a U-Haul trailer hitched to a hearse?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com     Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

Unconvinced

[i]

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question:  “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him.  “Only God is truly good.  But to answer your question, you know the commandments:  ‘You must not commit adultery.  You must not murder.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honor your father and mother.’”  The man replied, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young.”  When Jesus heard his answer, he said, “There is still one thing you haven’t done.  Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  But when the man heard this he became very sad, for he was very rich.   Luke 18:18-23^(NLT)

We have the center of the reason for this story when we hear Jesus ask the rich young man WHY he called Jesus “good”.  The young man was not looking for information, he wanted rationalization!  He wanted back-up for that which he already believed, that he was a good man, who did good stuff, and therefore he could relax from all his worry that it wasn’t enough.  He wanted some assurance that God was on his side, but He believed what he wanted to believe, and challenged Jesus (or anybody else) to say otherwise.

There’s another story Jesus didn’t tell, but it makes the same point.  A man believed he was dead.  He drove his co-workers, neighbors and family crazy with this idea, but nobody could shake his belief; unconvinced, he knew was dead!

The man’s wife took him to a psychiatrist, who used every technique he knew to convince the man he was still alive…but to no avail…the man considered himself dead!

Finally the psychiatrist asked the man, do dead men bleed? 

The patient looked at him and said, of course not; they’re dead! 

With that the shrink took a needle and pricked the man’s arm, which started to bleed profusely.  Smiling, the doc asked the cornered patient, well, then, if you’re dead, how do you explain that?

Totally surprised, staring at his profusely bleeding arm, the man answered:

Well, I’ll be; a dead man really does bleed!

People ask lots of questions without really wanting an answer that goes against their preconceived beliefs:

How could a loving God send people to Hell?

If God really loves me, why did He let this bad thing happen to me?

Why doesn’t God do something about all the hungry people?

For the most part that kind of question doesn’t look for an answer that will straighten-out our thinking; it’s more like the question the rich young ruler asked – the question of unbelief looking for a comfortable corner from which to criticize or escape responsibility.

The questions are a little worse than foolish; they’re attempts to put God on the hook for our responsibility.  After all, He did do something about all the hungry people – he gave us food, and he gave us hands to offer that food.  And he gave us a conscience to let us know what we’re supposed to do.

For You Today

You won’t be able to save everybody in the world today.  But you can start with saving yourself from asking WHY God does or doesn’t, and start asking WHAT I can and must do.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

[i]  Title image: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

[i]

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Someone came to Jesus with this question:  “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  “Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied.  “There is only One who is good.  But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.”  “Which ones?” the man asked.  And Jesus replied:  “‘You must not murder.  You must not commit adultery.  You must not steal.  You must not testify falsely.  Honor your father and mother.  Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied.  “What else must I do?”  Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.   

Matthew 19:16-22^(NLT)

There isn't a sinless character in the Bible (with the exception of Jesus).  I'm glad we see the warts of such heroes as Moses, Abraham and Peter.  Each of them experienced that what's the use feeling from time to time. 

Aimlessness, or purposelessness, is tied very closely to man's innate need to know, and experience the presence of God.  In reality, it is the lack of that close relationship with God that causes that void in life.  Ultimately God is our purpose and reason for living.  Scripture teaches we were created for God, so without Him we will tire of life's toys and distractions; we feel empty.

Nobody is immune to this void.  In the account of the rich young ruler, it was that restless feeling that there was something he'd left undone with his life that prompted his question…what else?  It's very much like attending your wife's high school reunion; somehow you just don't fit.  It’s a squirmy restlessness; you’d just rather not be there.

The man asked Jesus to help him sort it out.  Jesus pointed the man to what God said about behaving yourself found in the Ten Commandments.  But the man wasn't content with superficial rules-keeping; he'd done that all his life.  He was rich and respected…he had it all, but still, on the inside there was no peace.  Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones sang about this ruler in the 60's; I Can't Get No Satisfaction was voted America’s all-time #1 Rock and Roll favorite[ii].  WHY?  Simply because it matched with what is singularly THE most common human experience – emptiness, the kind of void which traces back to being separated from that for which we were created.  We can't be fulfilled outside of a close, loving fellowship with God.  The tragedy of people searching for a sense of purpose in the drug culture, booze, or new toys is that the frantic race for a higher high, or a longer lasting popularity, or a new and different experience is just what Mick Jagger sang about: 

"I try, and I try, and I try, and I try; I can't get no satisfaction!"

And the terrible reality about emptiness is that we choose it.  Jesus wanted the ruler to choose a relationship with God; the only requirement was to remove whatever stood between.  The man had already dealt with the one thing that trips-up most people – our pride!  Just coming to Jesus with his questions shows the ruler wasn't overly prideful.  His problem was his materialism, his wealth.

Choices are a part of everyday life.  We choose to get up in the morning, and what clothes to wear.  When given the choice - Jesus or wealth - the ruler was sad.  He was sad, having glimpsed the one thing that would give him peace, and choosing the one thing that would ensure he would never have peace…no satisfaction! 

We are strange people indeed, when we choose death over life.  Reality screams that you cannot have new life when you refuse to let go of the old. 

For You Today

For a growing Christian, part of your prayer every day ought to include, like the rich young ruler, anything else?  But when the answer comes back…make a good choice!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i] Title Image: By Bert Verhoeff (ANEFO), via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] American Bandstand – Dick Clark emcee 1990