Tag Archive | The rich man and Jesus

Mark 10 – what is your soul worth?

Mar20

Good Afternoon y’all. Today we are studying Mark chapter 10.

I am focusing the blog on verses 17 – 30

Be blessed 🙂

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The rich man comes to Jesus to ask what he needs to do in order to inherit eternal life. I believe this man genuinely wanted to know but he didn’t realize the price he would have to pay for it.

Jesus responds in v19 – “But as for your question—you know the commandments: don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, respect your father and mother.”

The rich man was getting excited..lol..because he already fulfills all the laws Jesus mentioned. He responds by saying, “I’ve obeyed all these commandments since I was young”

Then Jesus decided to burst his bubble just a lil bit by his next response…lol. Jesus replied him:  “You lack only one thing,” he told him; “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor—and you shall have treasure in heaven—and come, follow me.”

“Oh dear! Not my possessions? Come on, Jesus, what’s this about? Why did you have to even go there? Come on, man!”… these are my own interpretation of what would have been going on in the rich man’s mind…Oh the man was so sad. Verse 22 says: “Then the man’s face fell, and he went sadly away, for he was very rich”.

Notice the contrast between the rich man’s response to Jesus’ invitation and that of the disciples in the earlier chapters when Jesus called them to follow Him?

The disciples were busy earning a living; they were fishing, which happens to be their source of livelihood, when Jesus walked by and asked them to follow him and immediately they left all to follow him. I think one of them even left the father in the boat and ran after Jesus! Whereas this rich man just couldnt imagine parting with his possessions and following Jesus. The rich man valued his riches more than having a relationship with Jesus and having eternal life.

It’s a tough call, but he couldn’t pay the price. Remember Jesus said in chapter 8:34 that if any will follow him you will have to first of all deny yourself.

“Then he called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen. “If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them, “you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely.”(Mark 8:34 TLB)

Well this man sort of missed that memo. Jesus gave him another opportunity but he chose what was more important to him: his riches.

Truth is all these material things we are chasing won’t go anywhere with us when we die or the end comes. That’s just the plain truth. So, are they worth loosing our souls for?

Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not saying we shouldn’t desire to be rich or have good things. What I’m saying is that when those material things become idols and take God’s place in our lives then we have an issue.

Money was made to serve man and not man to serve money. We should learn to master our riches and not them master us.

Scripture says, “Tell those who are rich not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon be gone, but their pride and trust should be in the living God who always richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and should give happily to those in need, always being ready to share with others whatever God has given them. By doing this they will be storing up real treasure for themselves in heaven—it is the only safe investment for eternity! And they will be living a fruitful Christian life down here as well. (1 Tim 6: 17-19 TLB)

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.” (Matt 6:19 -21 MSG)

Let’s check ourselves today: myself included.  What are those idols that are stopping us from serving God as fully as we ought to. I know we often say this phrase “Jesus, You are Lord of my life” but is He truly?  Have we truly surrendered all that we are to Him or is He only Lord in certain parts of our lives? Like the rich man, he carried out all the commandments diligently but when it came to letting Jesus be Lord over his possessions, he couldn’t do it.

Remember this verse; “And how does a man benefit if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process? For is anything worth more than his soul?” (Mark 8: 36 -37)

Heaven is real….. Hell is real…. choose wisely.

Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Today I have set before you life and death: choose life….

Apostle Paul said “But all these things that I once thought very worthwhile—now I’ve thrown them all away so that I can put my trust and hope in Christ alone. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have put aside all else, counting it worth less than nothing, in order that I can have Christ, and become one with him, no longer counting on being saved by being good enough or by obeying God’s laws, but by trusting Christ to save me; for God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith—counting on Christ alone”.(Phil 3:7-9 TLB)

Verse 29 -31 gives a great promise that those who sacrifice and give up things for God will not go unrewarded. So be rest assured there is a crown and reward waiting for you at the end of this. Your sacrifices are not in vain. God sees and He is taking notes 🙂

I pray the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to see the things that represent idols in our lives and give us the grace to make the changes needed. That our love for God will be genuine and nothing will be too much for us to sacrifice for Him. Amen.

Thanks for joining today. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter.

Have a blessed weekend 🙂

I am blogging through the book of mark with Good Morning Girls. Pls check us out at www.goodmorninggirls.org

***With God all things are possible***

Matthew 19 – Gift of Eternal Life

Mar26

Good evening y’all. Today we are looking at Matthew 19.

I am focusing the blog on verses 19 – 26.

Be blessed 🙂

“A man came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to have eternal life?”  Jesus said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? Only God is good. If you want to have eternal life, you must obey his commandments.”    “Which ones?” the man asked. Jesus answered, “Do not murder. Be faithful in marriage. Do not steal. Do not tell lies about others.  Respect your father and mother. And love others as much as you love yourself.” The young man said, “I have obeyed all of these. What else must I do?”  Jesus replied, “If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and be my follower.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was very rich.  Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you, it’s terribly hard for rich people to get into the kingdom of heaven! In fact, it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into God’s kingdom.”  When the disciples heard this, they were greatly surprised and asked, “How can anyone ever be saved?”  Jesus looked straight at them and said, “There are some things people cannot do, but God can do anything.”(Matthew 19:16-26 CEVUS06)

I often hear people say things like ‘as long as I am good and morally upright I will make it to heaven and have eternal life’. If that’s the case, then Jesus coming to die for us is of no use and a total waste of His time and effort. But we all know that’s not the case. Our good works can’t get us into heaven. In the book of Isaiah, it is written that our righteousness are like filthy rags before God.

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind”. (Isaiah 64:6 NLT)

God is the only good person. We can’t do any good on our own. The bible says the heart of man is desperately wicked (Jer 17:9). It is therefore God in us that helps us be good.

The rich man in our text today, assumed there was a good deed he could do in order to get eternal life. We can’t buy God’s love or our place in heaven by doing what we term as good deeds. It is pride that makes us think we can buy eternal life by being good. What is required of us is found in Jesus’ response to this man in verse 17

If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.”(Matthew 19:17b MSG)

Jesus is saying here that the key to eternal life is obedience to God. How obedient are we to God’s instructions? Do we obey them grudgingly, partially or fully. God knows our hearts. We can fool ourselves and others but we can’t fool God. We will find out further that this man claimed to be obedient to God’s instructions, yet when Jesus clearly told him to go sell all His possessions he couldn’t do it. The state of our heart matters a lot when it comes to obedience.

The rich man asked for what God was specifically asking him to do. He was excited when Jesus listed all that he needed to do, for he had done them all. So he asked if there was anything else. Jesus told him if you really want to go the extra mile, then go sell all your possessions and give everything to the poor. The man was heartbroken and just couldn’t cope with Jesus response, so he walked away. He walked away from the gift of eternal life because he valued his earthly possessions more than his soul. His riches were more important to him than having a spot in heaven.

One  would have thought, a man that obeyed all the commandments surely should love God and be willing to obey him. It just shows we can do things just for doing sake, to tick the box and look righteous on the outside but when push comes to shove, our works are shallow and don’t carry any weight. We realise like this man that our heart is not really involved in our service of God. Hence when God asks us to do something outside of our comfort zone, we struggle to obey like this man did because our hearts wasn’t right in the first place.

What is that one thing that is so important to you that you can’t let go for God? What is He asking you to give up so you can fully serve Him? He can transform your life and make it even better than it already is. Don’t forget those earthly things are here today and gone tomorrow. Ask yourself is it really worth the hassle? If you were to die today, you couldn’t take any of those things with you so why hold on tightly to them and loose your chance to reign eternally with God?

The disciples were astonished and they thought it an impossible task to be saved and make it to heaven. But Jesus answered them and said with man it is impossible but with God all things are possible. This life of obedience and submission that God requires of us, is one we can’t do on our own. We need the Holy Spirit to help us. Our flesh will always wage war against us when we try to do the right thing but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can prevail against our flesh. Galatians 5:16 says: “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves”.(Gal 5:16 NLT)

In return for following Christ, we get to live and reign with Him eternally. From where I’m standing that’s a pretty good offer from God. Think about it: we get to walk the street of gold; and worship with the angels 24/7. What an awesome experience it will be. I’m looking forward to that glorious day 🙂

Today, let’s examine our hearts and ask God for forgiveness where we have been disobedient. Let’s ask for grace to trust Him to help us obey his commands and serve him with all our hearts, soul and mind. Let’s ask for the strength to let go of those things that we hold on tightly to that are hindering us from serving God wholeheartedly.

Thanks for joining today.

Have a blessed night 🙂

***With God all things are possible***