Young Dumb and…

In Mark 10 verses 17 through 31, we find a popular story infamously titled, “The Rich Young Ruler”. Jesus is approached by a young man who, as the title explains, is also very wealthy and of some sort of royal heritage. In this portion of scripture we also find out that the young man is one who would considered a pretty good person. The young ruler, approaches Jesus to ask to join him on his journey. From the exterior, it would seem very dumb of Jesus not let this young man join along. Being of royal status in this time meant he had influence, power, money, and was also educated in scripture. The kind of person you’d want on your side to help change the world, but Jesus doesn’t look at the exterior alone.

Jesus informs the young man that the only thing he must do to follow Jesus is to let go of all of his earthly possessions, sell it to the poor, so that he can have treasure in Heaven. After hearing this, the young man turns around sadly and leaves. Jesus goes onto explain to his disciples that it is near impossible for a wealthy man to enter into Heaven. This is not to claim that if you want to become a Christian you have to be poor and have no earthly possessions. What is being said in this portion of scripture is that we only have so long on this earth to leave our mark. Money, possessions, and even kingdoms of this world pass on, but when we decide to invest into others lives, we invest into the eternal. When we decide to leave our trust for provision and seek life in Jesus then we begin to store our treasure in Heaven. God will honor the sacrifices we make. We must trust him to do so.