What Won’t You Give Up?
What won’t you give up? Or, to put it another way, what are you receiving in exchange for your soul? There is a story told in the gospel of Mark which describes a young man who came to Jesus, asking, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” You are probably familiar with some version of these events already, either from your upbringing, cultural experience, or your own active faith. Just in case you aren’t, though, I will share the full passage of scripture, Mark 10:17-27, below:
“17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall 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, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22 But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.
23 And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus *answered again and *said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus *said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.””
You may have noticed that I emboldened the words “love” and “treasure in heaven” in the excerpt above. We will get to that second one in a bit, but first I would like to focus on the word love. Love is a core concept of the Christian faith- 1 Corinthians 13:13 asserts it to be the core concept, followed by faith and hope. 1 John 4:8 tells us that “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” You cannot escape coming across the love of God in His word. Possibly the most famous passage in the entire Bible, John 3:16, states, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Romans 5:6-8 says “6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (I am quite fond of this passage, because it is deeply humbling and an excellent reminder that, while we may be good by the metric of ourselves or other men, before God we are all sinners.)
So we see that the love of God is exceedingly great, bestowed on the unworthy and unrighteous that they/we might be saved by it. But this love cost God dearly- it cost Him the life of His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, that we might be washed clean of our sins in His blood. Would you sacrifice your son- or daughter- for anyone, let alone someone whom you know isn’t worth nearly as much as them? I suspect not. I probably wouldn’t. Would you yourself be willing to die for someone who you knew may not care, or worse, would appreciate your sacrifice with their lips, but in their heart and their actions show hardly any concern- possibly even contempt- for you? This is what Christ did for us. Now, with that in mind, I would ask you to read the passage from Mark 10 once more, and then come back here. Do you see how absurd it is that this young man was unwilling to part with his earthly possessions? The passage says that Jesus felt a love for the man, which is what prompted Him to give such a hard saying. He knew the heart of the man (John 2:24) and went right to his heart, seeking to save him. In Mark 12:29-31, Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ “The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” This young man went away saddened that day because he was unwilling to part with his earthly possessions in order to follow Christ. He may have had a form of godliness, (2 Timothy 3:5) but when it came to giving up his own personal idol he was unwilling to part from it, even with eternal life being placed before him. We don’t know exactly why he was unwilling; perhaps his wealth was generational, inherited from his great great great grandfather. Perhaps he was a whizz in real estate and business. The reason doesn’t matter, though, the reality does, and the reality is that he, at least as far as scripture tells us, chose his wealth over Christ.
Who Would Do Such A Thing?
This may- and should- sound absurd. Who would possibly choose temporal convenience and comfort over eternal life? I’ll tell you: look in the mirror. If you are not a follower of Christ, you would have to do some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to remove yourself from that reality, but it still applies to you if you are a follower of Christ. If you doubt this, then I would ask you to look at the New Testament epistles and answer a question for me: were they written to Christians, or non-Christians? How about the letters to the seven churches in Revelation? Much of what is compiled in the New Testament- all scripture, but here we are focusing on members of the church- is there to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Paul's stern admonishments to the Corinthians and Galatians were not written to the unconverted, and neither were his encouragements and pleasantries which he frequently closed his letters with. (1 Corinthians 15:2) The warnings and admonishments of Christ in Revelation were not to the unconverted, but to those who abided in Him and were in grave danger of suffering eternal loss if they did not repent. In 1 Corinthians, we read of a man engaging in an incestuous relationship with his fathers wife (commonly understood to be his step mother, 1 Corinthians 10:1). Hebrews warns, terrifyingly, of the dangers of coming into fellowship with Christ and then falling away (Hebrews 6:4-8). Jesus Himself tells one of the churches in Revelation, Sardis, that though they have a name (reputation) that they are alive, they are dead, and He concludes His message to them with the ominous promise- and warning- that , “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” The alternative for those who fail to overcome hangs unspoken, but with tremendous weight. The same can be said for each of the seven churches of Revelation, who are promised:
Access to the tree of life
Freedom from the second death
Some of the hidden manna and a white stone with a new name
Authority over the nations, and the morningstar
White garments and a place in the book of life, as well as the confession of Christ before God the Father and His angels
To be made a pillar in the temple of God, to have the name of God written on him, and to have the name of the city of God written on him, and His new name (Christ actually says “of My God” when describing each of these rewards)
And lastly, that he who overcomes will be granted to sit on His (Christ’s) throne with Him, just as He sat down on His Father’s throne with Him
These are truly exceptional rewards, but each one is introduced with a conditional phrase placed before it; he who overcomes. Now, a response to this might be to quote 1 John 5:4-5, which says “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” This seems quite simple- all Christians are overcomers! Except, once again, there is a qualifying statement which precedes this, in verses 1-3: “1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” Now that this context is in place, we can accurately say that, yes, Christians are overcomers, but it is specifically those who believe that Jesus is the Christ and love God and keep His commandments. This echoes the book of James, 2:14-20: “14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?”
This by no means implies that our works are what redeem us in the sight of God - He is an impartial judge, and will not sentence us for our good works and righteousness, but for our sins and unrighteousness- rather, it stands in line with the words of Christ, in John 14:15, “15 If you love me you will keep my commandments.” The rich young man from our Mark passage at the beginning would have, by no means, been saved by his works of charity alone, but rather by his faith in and obedience to Jesus’ words, and the same is true for each of us today. The instructions given to him by Christ were not given to indicate that His followers may not own anything- several of the benefactors of Jesus’ own ministry were wealthy (and were also women, so you can’t say He was anti-woman), like Lydia in the book of acts (Acts 16:14-40), not to mention that James tells the rich not that they must become paupers, but rather to glory in their shame (James 1:10)- but to, as I said earlier, cut to the heart of the young man and save him. His idol which separated him from God was his wealth; what is yours? What are mine? I recently had to get rid of a number of cards and other memorabilia that I was quite fond of and had amassed a pretty solid collection of. I liked my trinkets- I loved them. But I also spent an inordinate amount of time and money on them, and they were only a few in a long list of personal idols I had built up in my heart over the years. I spent little time in my Bible, little time in prayer, little time contemplating the destination of my soul and the souls around me. I had bought in, eagerly and greedily, and had spent years finding comfort and solace in all my little “gods.” What about you? Do you bow down to the god of wealth? Status? Your hobbies, job, or achievements? How about your family, and the crowd you run with? Do you bend the knee to addiction? Or is your god really yourself, placed on a high pedestal to imitate the real God? Whatever it is you are clinging to, it is easy to serve a master that makes allowances for us, whose standard is only as high as we feel is fair. If we are honest, many of us are like that rich young man at heart; we think ourselves pious- even when we are not- but the moment we are hit with the reality of following Christ, we are devastated, and we likely become despondent or angry at the realization/reminder that we are wretched. It is understandable to experience distress at a time like this- we should be distressed when we either realize or are reminded that we are clinging to idols and dishonoring God. It is a grievous and serious thing. The question, then, is this: how will we respond? Will we take the time to soberly examine ourselves, or will we go away from Christ, grieved over the loss of our trinkets?
Closing Thoughts
I hope that this is more encouraging than discouraging. I understand that it is difficult- we all have some measure of bias in favor of ourselves, and we all have different hurdles which we must overcome in the race that is laid out before us. One may struggle with lust, another with anger or greed, another with pride through piety, and yet another with a natural gravitation towards indifference or more aggressively rebellious behaviors. When all is said and done, though, no one else will stand accountable for our lives when we stand before the Lord one day. Christ tells us that if our hand causes us to stumble that we are to cut it off; likewise, if our eye causes us to stumble that we are to pluck it out (Matthew 5:29-30). Hebrews 12:1 tells us to set aside every sin and encumbrance which so easily entangles us. We need to understand and appreciate that, though we are all unique, we all are prone to the shared proclivity towards sin which has held the human race captive since Adam and Eve. Our individual sin is grievous, but so is that of our neighbor, our mother and father, and their mother and father, as far back as memory will go. The outcome, if they would not repent and let go of their idols, was the same for them as it will be for all of us if we are unwilling to yield to the authority of Christ and follow Him. Let us learn from the words of life and examples made available to us and let go of the things which, if we are being honest, keep us from truly pursuing the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
