The Challenge
“As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”
Mark 10:17
How badly do you want eternal life? The great 20th Century theologian Paul Tillich said there are three qualities of life that we all want: security, certainty and perfection. That is what the young man who approached Jesus was struggling to find by having great wealth and following the Law, but he still felt unfulfilled. And when Jesus challenged him to trust God, he could not because he was possessed by his possessions. Unfortunately, this is still true of many people.
Like the young man, many people still want to trust their possessions, their money (what the Bible calls mammon) to provide them security against the chaos of the world. The Christian writer Frederick Buechner once wrote, “There are people who use up their entire lives making money so that they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up.”
Or perhaps you focus on certainty in the false sense that you are an island of control in all the chaos around you. For some people, a full check book is a great problem solver.
Then there are those people who focus on perfection. For them, it seems that their need for money is insatiable, like J. Paul Getty, who was once asked how much money was enough and famously replied, “Just a little more than I have already got.”
Are you willing to sacrifice security, certainty and perfection to gain your life eternal? Jesus offers us the perfection of life in God. If we follow Him, we are offered the opportunity to become that true self that God has created us to be. The great leap of faith is to let go of the false sense of security, certainty and perfection that the world offers, and trust God. The rich young man could not do this. Can you? What will you gain by winning the whole world at the cost of your true self? How badly do you want eternal life?
