Possessions and salvation

Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, 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." – Matthew 19.21-24

The great desire for wealth and possessions, in fact any kind of distraction that we see today is nothing new. It goes back to the very beginning and has been the cause of ruin of many and man throughout history.

Here we have the case of a rich young ruler coming to Jesus to ask Him what needs to be done to get into the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said that all he had to do was to keep the commandments. That’s a pretty simple response to which the man said ‘I have done all that since I was young.’

Now Jesus knew the man’s heart and history so He tested the man’s application of keeping the commandments.

‘Okay’ Jesus said, ‘if you want to prove you are perfect go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor. If you do that you will have treasure in heaven so then come and follow me.’

The man turned and walked away sadly. The reason? He had great possessions.

Possessions are not necessarily bad. They can be used for good. The problem is that for this man the possessions were more important to him than following Jesus. He simply had too much to give up.

It doesn’t have to be possessions. It can be anything that distracts us from God. What this man was focused on was more important to him than dealing with his eternity.

It is easy to look at this guy and condemn him for his worldly attitude. And, we have to say, with good reason. It is tough for people to give up what they have to follow Christ. It reminds me of the recent passage about taking up our cross to follow Christ. If we are going to follow Christ we need to be willing to leave it all behind.

I will have more on this tomorrow, but for today perhaps we need to consider what keeps us from following Christ. It may be riches for some people, but it may be any other idols in our lives.

We need to keep our eyes and affections not on the things of this world, but the one to come as we follow Christ,