16 A man came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to have life forever?”
17 Jesus answered, “Why do you ask me about what is good? Only God is good. But if you want to have life forever, obey the commands.”
18 The man asked, “Which commands?”
Jesus answered, ” ‘You must not murder anyone; you must not be guilty of adultery; you must not steal; you must not tell lies about your neighbor; 19 honor your father and mother; and love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ ”
20 The young man said, “I have obeyed all these things. What else do I need to do?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, then go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. If you do this, you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.”
22 But when the young man heard this, he left sorrowfully, because he was rich.
23 Then Jesus said to his followers, “I tell you the truth, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Yes, I tell you that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
25 When Jesus’ followers heard this, they were very surprised and asked, “Then who can be saved?”
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “For people this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
27 Peter said to Jesus, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. So what will we have?”
28 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, when the age to come has arrived, the Son of Man will sit on his great throne. All of you who followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And all those who have left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or farms to follow me will get much more than they left, and they will have life forever. 30 Many who are first now will be last in the future. And many who are last now will be first in the future.
Read Matthew 19:16-30 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
While the event we are focusing in on is found in three of the four gospels, for this journal entry, we will focus on Matthew’s version of this event. In Matthew’s version of the story, we read, “Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be perfect, then go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. If you do this, you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.’ But when the young man heard this, he left sorrowfully, because he was rich.” (verses 21-22).
This the only time I am aware of where Jesus gives someone a task to complete before following Him. Where this story is placed in each of the gospels, it is unclear if there was enough time for the man to even complete the request, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because he went away sorrowfully, because he was “rich”.
What the story doesn’t tell us is the end of this man’s journey. He could have written Jesus off and stayed rich and “almost” perfect, but he may have instead been convicted when he reached his home and thought a lot about what Jesus had said.
“He went away sorrowfully.” This tells us that there was tension in his mind. Wealth/money/stuff or Jesus – which for their view of the Messiah at that point would have meant status and fame, even if Jesus didn’t seem to be interested in going that route. This man had a definite conflict in his mind.
We don’t know where his story ended, but that tells us something too: our story hasn’t ended either. We still have the option to accept Jesus’ call to “come and follow” Him. As we pointed out in the previous journal entry on this event, we are late in the world’s timeline of history – but we still have the option to come, which if you think about it, is all that really matters in the end.
We don’t know where this man ended up, but we can decide where we will end; we can decide to accept the invitation to “follow”.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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