COME, FOLLOW ME
Opening Prayer
Loving Savior, thank you for putting your place in heaven aside and coming to die for my sin. Thank you that all you are and have is for me.
Read LUKE 18:18–30
The Rich and the Kingdom of God
18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’[a]”
21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
28 Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Footnotes
- Luke 18:20 Exodus 20:12-16; Deut. 5:16-20
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
What do you truly value above everything else? That is the big question Jesus will ask you today. Get ready to answer him.This passage has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with priorities. It appears also in Mark 10:17–30 and Matthew 19:16–29. Like most Jewish people at that time, Jesus’ disciples saw wealth as a sign of God’s blessing and approval (v. 26). If this man didn’t make the grade, then the rest of us should simply give up trying. Or so it seems.
Jesus had already made the point clearly in Luke 12:34: ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ John Calvin expresses this truth in his famous assessment that ‘The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.’* We have a problem of eternal consequence that we simply cannot solve on our own. Left to our own devices we will make it worse day by day.
The only hope is if God intervenes and actually changes us from the inside out. Jesus assures us that this miracle is already under way in verse 27. But wait (as they say in the TV advertisements): there’s more! Not only can we be saved, but also richly blessed (vv. 29, 30). Our eternal future is not in some grey refugee camp, but in abundant life with a loving Father.
Apply
Jesus’ command to the ruler applies to us today: put everything aside and follow him. There is no other way. Take a moment to reflect on Hebrews 12:1.
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, I confess that your kingdom does not always take first place in my thinking or actions. As I ask your forgiveness, I also look to you to help me have right priorities—your priorities—in all I think and do.
*John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1536
Book and Author Intros
Extras
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Discovery is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.