Now, amazingly, Jesus almost resists this amazing entrance. He does so to peel back the shallowness of this man’s reception of Him and to expose the real problem, the bedrock of willfulness, rebellion, arrogance, and unyieldedness in this rich young man’s life.
Mark 10:18-19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’” NKJV
Mark 10:20 And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.” NKJV
The young man said he had never once broken any of the laws Jesus mentioned (Mark 10:19-20), and perhaps he had even kept the Pharisees’ loophole-filled version of them. But Jesus lovingly broke through the young man’s pride with a challenge that answered his own question: Sell everything you have and give to the poor. This challenge exposed the barrier that could keep this young man out of the kingdom: his love of money. Money represented his pride of accomplishment and self-effort. Ironically, his attitude made him unable to keep the first commandment, one that Jesus did not quote in Mark 10:19: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 nrsv; see also Matthew 22:36-40). The young man did not love God with his whole heart as he had presumed. In reality, the man’s wealth was his god, his idol. If he could not give it up, he would be violating the first and greatest commandment.
In this story, we see clearly the essence of the gospel—repent and believe. Jesus told the rich young man to turn his back on his past (repent) and to begin following him (believe). The young man may have wanted to believe, but he was unwilling to repent.
From KGD-33d – The Shallow Heart (040509AM)
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