September 1: A man’s secret idol exposed

A ruler asked Him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good but One — God. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother.” “I have kept all these from my youth,” he said. When Jesus heard this, He told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich. Seeing that he became sad, Jesus said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”   (Luke 18:18-24 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)

This man appeared to be good, behaved well, and even claimed to have obeyed all of the Ten Commandments from his youth. But he knew something was wrong with his life, and so he came to ask Jesus about it. Jesus immediately knew what was wrong: he loved money more than he loved God. Money was his idol. So Jesus recommended radical spiritual surgery, knowing that this was the one way to set him free. 

Jesus told him to give away all he had — to cut out the cancer that was draining away all his faith in God. Jesus even invited the man to join Him after giving everything away — to become one of His disciples. Obviously, what Jesus was asking him to do was extremely hard, and yet, as the passage says, this was the one thing blocking this man from being saved. It had to be sacrificed. If he had gone ahead and done it, we would probably know his name today. He would have been another Peter, Paul, or John. Instead the Bible doesn’t even bother to tell us his name and we never hear of him again. Money was his treasure, not Jesus.

Being a Christian means we belong to Jesus, and that He has the right to give us commands. One of His very first commands is to repent of sins. If we’re thieves, we have to stop stealing; if we’re committing adultery, we have to stop; if we’re lying, we have to start telling the truth. This ruler was asked to give up what was separating him from God, and he refused. He became extremely sad after hearing what Jesus wanted him to do, then turned and walked away. That night he had money, but not Jesus or salvation. We cannot make the same mistake.

In the next chapter of Luke we come across another rich man, Zacchaeus, who had not kept the commandments since his youth, and was not a good person. He was a thief and a traitor. When Jesus invited Himself over to his house for a meal he became extremely happy, and during the meal, without anyone asking him to, he stood up and promised to give away half he had to the poor, and pay back anyone he had robbed (and there must have been many) four times what he had taken. Jesus then declared that salvation had come to that household. What the ruler had asked for, Zacchaeus received. What a contrast between these two men.

The amount of time we’ve been in church or known about God, and the amount of good deeds we’ve done do not necessarily translate into being spiritual and pleasing to God. Let’s make sure we remove whatever is separating us from Him, no matter how hard that may be.