The cost of following Jesus!

'Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
"Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honour your father and mother, and love your neighbour as yourself.”
"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.'
Matthew 19:16-22

What does it mean to give your life to Christ?

What’s the real cost of following Jesus?

Everything!

With Jesus there’s no half way house, there is no compromise. God wants everything from us. He wants to inhabit every part of our being, to have control over every part of our lives! Here we see the rich man asking what he has to do to have eternal life. He has obeyed all the commandments and still this is not enough for Jesus! Jesus says he has to sell everything that he has and give it to the poor. If we really want to follow Jesus there is sacrifice involved. It’s one of the hardest things we can do to give God control over every part of our lives, over all our material possessions and money. It proved too much for the rich man in passage too who walked away from Jesus. His riches meant too much to him to give up, even compared to the eternal life we can find in Jesus. What is it in our lives we desperately hold onto? What is it we would find hard to give up?

PS3? Xbox 360? Makeup? Clothes? I pod? Phone?

You see going half way isn’t enough. As the rich man walked away Jesus didn’t bargain with him. If you give up half for now we can work on the other half later. No he had to give everything he had. We need to give up everything we have and abandon ourselves to God. Now I don’t know if this means we literally need to go and sell everything we have. Maybe it does? But I know that it means we need to be prepared to do that if that is what is needed!

The other thing I find interesting is that Jesus lets the rich man walk away. He doesn’t run after him trying to persuade the man! Jesus just lets him walk away. God isn’t going to force it upon us; he isn’t going to make us give up everything we own. But the man did walk away, away from Jesus, away from eternal life. Can we hold onto all we own and abandon ourselves to God? Is there space for compromise when we follow Jesus?

When the disciples hear this they too are troubled and ask ‘Who then can be saved?’ I reckon they probably doubted their own ability to give up everything they had, their possessions, dreams, ambitions and hopes! Jesus says that this is impossible for man but ‘With God all things are possible!’ We cannot do it ourselves, it is impossible! But we don’t have to; it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, God at work within us that enables us to give up all we have. It’s God who asks it of us and He makes it possible by working in our hearts and lives! How amazing is that!