A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.
You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
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."
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If you are reading this post right now, then you are most likely among the wealthiest people in the world. Almost half of the world lives on less than $2 a day. Pretty crazy isn't it? But wealth and possessions are not the most crucial fault that the rich young ruler is guilty of in this passage. The issue at hand is the heart of the rich man. He has followed all the rules, but I don't believe he has grasped "life to the fullest" as Jesus describes it in John 10:10. He doesn't really know what it means to be a devoted follower of Jesus.Jesus teaches that as his followers we should live our life consumed by His Spirit. Christian literally means little Christ. To best describe this I'll use a metaphor. Our lives are like house. We have multiple rooms and doors. Each room contains its own segment of our lives. When we invite Christ into our life, we open up the front door of our house to him. But we don't open up all the other doors. We keep him locked our of back rooms, closets, and even enormous halls in the house of our life. Gradually we let Christ in to some of the smaller rooms, the rooms we value the least, but it can be a real challenge to give up our strongholds up to Christ. For the rich young ruler, his wealth was one of his rooms. He might have allowed Christ to enter all of the other rooms in his house, but not the one which was most important to him. The rich young ruler walked away from Christ because he wasn't willing to give up that room.
We do this too often to God. For me, I'll willingly let him enter the room which holds my money. I'll let him in to the room of my leadership abilities. But too often I keep him out of my "I can do it all" room. My room of pride often stays closed as well. To truly experience the life God has planned for me, I have to let him in to those rooms. For me, that means admitting only through Christ's strength can I do His works. I have to surrender my pride and give him all of the glory.
Do we really want to live for Christ? If so we must live fully, not half-heartedly. We all have rooms that we keep Christ out of. We tell Jesus that he can have our musical talents, but not our money. We tell him he can have our spring break for a mission trip, but he can't have our relationships. It's true for all of us, we just have different rooms locked away.
So what is your secret room? What part of your life are you hiding from God?
The rich young ruler walks away from Christ and we don't see him again in scripture. I don't know about you, but I want to live for Christ, and that require opening those hidden doors in our lives. It isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination. But I will tell you this: It's worth it.
-matt
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