I grew up in Wyong. I grew up thinking that my family weren’t very rich. I grew up disappointed that my parents didn’t buy me all of the toys that I ‘needed’.
I’ve now grown up and now realise just how rich I’ve always been. Having running water, a roof over my head, a steady income and an incredibly prosperous government and welfare system means that I’m one of the richest people in the world!
If you’re reading this on the Internet, you’re rich too. Truly poor people don’t use the internet. Jesus says in Luke 18:18-34 that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
Bummer.
It’s pretty tough to get into the Kingdom of God!
It’s even tougher when you try to do something to get in. The Rich Dude in Luke 18 thought that he could ‘do’ something to go to heaven: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
He thinks he’s done enough. He claims to have kept a bunch of commandments. Yet he’s failed to keep the greatest commandment. He doesn’t love and worship God with all of his heart. He loves his possessions and riches more than he loves God.
The truth is that all of us fail to love God as we should.
So the disciples rightly ask – who then can be saved?
Jesus: what’s impossible with men is possible for God.
It’s impossible for anyone – rich or poor – to receive eternal life by doing stuff. Immediately following Jesus’ interaction with the Rich Dude Jesus speaks, in Luke 18:31-34, of how the impossible will be achieved. The key? Jesus. Jesus will do it. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. How does he do that? Through his death and resurrection.
Where is your trust? Is it in yourself and what you can DO? Or is it in Jesus and what he has DONE?
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Part 7 of Lost and Found. I’m writing a series of talks and studies on Lost and Found. These aren’t talks or studies… just some thinking. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.