Ch. 645 - Our True Inheritance

For my Life of Christ III class I have been working on an assignment regarding the gospel of Matthew. For each chapter in Matthew, I have to give a brief summary of the chapter - and for chapters nineteen through twenty-eight, I also have to write a devotional/reflection. Now, I'm technically writing this chapter on February 11... I [obviously] fell behind in writing, so I thought it'd be easy to catch-up using those devotional/reflection writings. "Oh, the cleverness of me!" I may even continue to use them past the catch-up point... and then do the same for my Mark, Luke, and John devotionals later on this semester. Brilliant? Indeed.

'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, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor 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]

I think it’s important to realize that even by being “good people” and following God’s commandments, we cannot draw near to Christ because we tend to cling to idols such as earthly treasures. We truly need to give everything up in order to follow Christ. The rich, young ruler in these verses could have had everything – intimacy with God, the gift of discipleship, heavenly treasure, and eternal life… but by overestimating the value of earthly treasure, he lost the opportunity to gain what truly matters. Anything that inhibits our drawing near to God may be counted as sin. We need to let go of such things and repent, so that we can inherit what God desires to give us.