What Good Thing Must I Do?

Monday, November 12, 2007
On one occasion, a rich, young man came to Jesus, asking Him a question that was certainly worthy of an accurate answer—”What good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” Obviously, he was thinking in much the same way as the religious of today think—”What good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” I love Jesus’ response to him: “. . . if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Just for the record: this is the only accurate answer Jesus could have given to one so self-centered, as to believe that there was some good thing he could do that would enable him to obtain eternal life. Of course, His answer was “baited” and, as you might expect, the young, rich man took the bait, with his response: “Which ones?”
Which ones? Does this sound like the religious of today, or what? Most of those who call themselves Christians today truly believe that God grades on the curve, that 6 out of 10 really impresses God. The really sad thing about this young man is that he actually thought he was doing great, probably 10 out of 10; however, Jesus made it crystal clear that he hadn’t even made it past the first commandment—You shalt have no other god’s before Me! There is no telling just how often we think we are doing really well at keeping the Commandments, when in reality, we haven’t even made it past the first one? If God were to reveal to anyone of us the number of idols we worship, it would bring us to our knees in true humility.
Anyway, Jesus’ way of revealing this young man’s idol was quite powerful: “. . . go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in Heaven; and come, follow Me.” From what I can see, it didn’t take this young man long to recognize his idol and, tragically, he chose to reject Jesus in favor of his idol. Before you are too quick to judge this young, rich man, ask yourself this question: How would I respond to the same opportunity? Of course, your answer depends upon how much you value your idol, and, I might add, yours might be different from his. Of this I am certain: when He presents you with this opportunity, He will “hit the nail on the head” and you will be faced with. . .well, you will be faced with a decision of some magnitude.
You see, eternal life is a gift, not just any gift but God’s gift to His elect, and there is no good thing that you or I can do to obtain it, even if we sell all of our possessions and give every last penny of the proceeds to the poor. The truth is had this young man actually sold his possessions and given the money to the poor and returned to Jesus with a receipt from the Salvation Army, he would have come up short of obtaining eternal life. How do I know this? Easy! Had he done it, his possessions would not have been his idol.
I really hope you can see this: If Jesus should ask you to do anything to obtain eternal life, He would be purposely asking you to do something that you CANNOT do; otherwise, He would not be asking you to do it. Take heart! He does this in order to show us that our being blessed with the gift of eternal life is His doing, not ours—His indescribable gift!
I wonder what would have been Jesus’ response had this young man simply said, “Jesus, I really want this eternal life that You offer but, in spite of my efforts, I cannot keep the commandments; I have tried and tried but I always fail. Do you have any suggestions for me?
Better still: Maybe we just need to come to Jesus and be quiet and allow Him to do the talking.