One thing you lack, go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. (Slightly edited down)That's a pretty clear, black and white sort of statement. There isn't much gray there. Yet I find myself stopped. Our team has spent a lot of time talking about simplicity and asking questions about what is and isn't ok to have. Jesus seems to say you're better off without anything. Now, I'm sure Jesus is allowing for me to keep some clothes so that I'm not naked, but I certainly don't need enough clothes to go three weeks without doing laundry. I suspect things like a Bible and a journal are ok things to have too. Just about anything else I could probably get along without. Why do I make excuses? Why don't I take Jesus seriously?
Friday, April 01, 2005
Do I Take Jesus Seriously Enough?
I was looking at Mark 10:17-31 this morning on the train. Verse 21 really hit me like a baseball bat to the face:
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4 comments:
good questions. I've been asking myself similar ones. Come June, 9 out of the 10 previous months I won't have even used money at all!
Ethan
That verse was very striking to me earlier this year. A friend spoke it to me and I heard it in a different way than I had ever before.
The beginning of that verse is: "Jesus looked at him and loved him."
It is out of Jesus' love for this man that he becons him to follow him and release himself from the bondage that has been his wealth and power. I really identify with the man in his sadness, but I believe that he did eventually heed Jesus' call (possibly the man who ran off into the garden naked when Jesus is arrested, and/or Mark himself). I have that similar hope for myself.
Blessings, Phil.
You all have me thinking now...
I think that perhaps Greg is onto something in noting that the love of God through Christ calls us out of bondage and into freedom. So a more clear way to apply this passage to our lives is to search out how we are made captive to something that separates us from God. For the "rich young man" it is his possessions, and that certainly seems to apply to our western culture. I know that I can lose myself in materialism, and make a false god of stuff and/or money. On the other hand, if I were to give up all of my possessions, it could be that my covetousness, bitterness, or hardened heart would then become the barrier between myself and God. So is this really about giving up our possessions literally, or giving up all the chaff within us to God's cleansing fire? The passage which broke me out of my materialistic funk yesterday is Romans 8:32
"He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?"
I know that he will, but I need a changed heart so that my life might bear witness to this truth.
That story has always been pretty key to me. I'm horrible at actually following it, of course. *sigh*
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