Our Bible reading is from the book of Luke chapter 18, verse 18 down to 30. There we find this encounter between the Lord and a man identified as a ruler, of the Jews. Obviously he was an influential man. We read that he was very wealthy.
He reminds us at once about the types who having acquired or attained wealth now want God as a stamp to complete them, but strictly on their own terms! They want God in their own way. They are rich so God has to listen to them. It is not the other way round.
In any case, he comes to Jesus and asks what are the requirements for entering into everlasting life. Unlike most in identical shoes, he was thinking beyond the moment. He was smart enough to see that it is a temporal or temporary life and the gulf ahead needed some serious thought and consideration.
The Lord points him to the Torah. The 10 commandments. And he confidently responded that he was entirely on top of all that. He was fully compliant. Then the Lord told him to add just one more thing to his wealth of virtues. He should sell everything he had, spread them among the poor, then come carry his cross and follow Him. That addition revealed everything. Jesus revealed him to him.
Despite all the outward show, he was in real fact an idol worshipper. He had so much he clung to that he couldn’t give up. Those things mattered most. They came first, and God could only compete for a second place!
I think it is important for us to recognize that, everybody is not required necessarily to sell everything they have in order to follow Jesus. He bragged and was given a true picture of himself. But we will all grow in the Lord to the point where He will always comes first, not second. Not third, or even worse.
“It is hard for those who have much wealth to enter into the kingdom of God”.
Now, what is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is a realm where God is the king, it is often confused with eternal or everlasting life. In Matthew 4:17, the Lord began preaching in the coastal plains of Israel and said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”. That didn’t imply that the end of the world had come. Everlasting life is not here. But the kingdom is here. I present to you an opportunity to start a life in which God is the One who determines everything. A life in which He is the One who settles what is right and wrong. You will take that reign away from your own mind or the popular trend of thought. Rather, you will be guided the rest of the way.
It is a life of peace and rest. Where you live by His Grace and not through the force of your own arms. The kingdom is here.
When someone has not yet surrendered to Christ, they usually think they can figure out what it means or feels like to be in God’s kingdom. They often don’t realize how that it is a new life and you cannot know it until you are in it.
There is love there. It is not the natural kind of love. It is what God installs there through His Holy Spirit. It has endurance beyond what anyone of us was born with.
You cannot offend or disappoint someone who is in the kingdom of God. They start to see and to learn through experience that whoever tries to work against them is working for them. Whatever works against them will work to their advantage, it is just a matter of time before it becomes apparent. Persecution is to their advantage. Conspiracy is to their benefit. Which one of us who has had the grace to know the blessings of the kingdom can ever want the crucifixion of Christ reversed? Would Joseph have wished that his envious brothers did not betray him after he took office over all of Egypt? Romans 8, verse 28 is a law of the kingdom. Which was why he prefixed it with, “And we know …”. We know through experience that all things work together for good to those that love God, and are called according to His purpose.
It does not mean all things will work. Or that all things will be good. It is as they weave and interact together that God’s beautiful design from the very beginning comes to the fore.
