Who, or what, is really our G/god?  If we are a follower of the One True God, the Creator of the world, I AM WHO I AM, we would probably say that He is our God. He is our first love. We say we only worship Him.

There is a very interesting account in the Bible of Jesus having an encounter with a young Jewish fellow, apparently a ruler. Before this encounter I’m sure he would have claimed vigorously that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was his God, that he only worshiped Him. But after talking with Jesus, he may have had second thoughts about this.

Let us set the scene of the account we find in Mark 10.  Jesus was near the Jordan, and by this time His fame was reaching a high point. He had fed 5000, then four thousand with just a small amount of food. He had healed people from many types of sicknesses, and had shown His power over the evil spirits. He had even raised people from the dead. Besides all the never-before-done miracles, His teaching was completely different from the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Teachers of the Law, etc. He taught with an authority and power and reason which was far above anything they taught.  Therefore a number of people are recorded as asking him hard questions. Some to test him, others to find the truth.

At the beginning of chapter 10, the question of divorce comes up, and the answer Jesus gives points out the weakness of the teaching on this subject by the teachers of the Law. Next He compares the trustfulness of children to those who submit to the rule of God in their lives. Then this happens: “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:17).

You can just feel the enthusiasm of this man. The text states that he runs up to Jesus, and then, drops to his knees.  Luke says that he is a ruler. It is also stated that he is rich. But despite his apparent high social status, he humbles himself before Jesus, drops to his knees, addresses Him in a respectful way, and asks Him a question he felt that, from listening to Jesus’ amazing teaching, he could get an answer for. The man could obviously tell there was something special about Jesus, something he had never seen in another person or teacher before. So he asks Him the ultimate question, maybe the most important thing one can ever know, how to receive/inherit eternal life.

However Jesus did not immediately answer the man’s question, as He did, for example, when someone asked Him what the greatest commandment was.  Jesus first addresses the respectful greeting, “good teacher” by responding in what many have seen is a puzzling way. A way which some have taken to mean that He is implying that He is not God, for the text says: “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone” (vs.18).

Is Jesus really implying here that He is not good nor God?  No, what He is doing is trying to help the man realize with whom he is speaking. As the blind man in John 9 said in response to the Pharisees questioning him about what he thought about the man who had healed him: “No one has ever before healed a man born blind. If He is not from God, then He could not have done such an impossible miracle.”

Now we have this man kneeling before Jesus. Maybe the act of kneeling itself shows he knows he is in the presence of Someone worthy of honor. This man had apparently heard Jesus teach. Mostly likely he had seen Jesus do miracles. But the man still did not realize with whom he was speaking. Peter had a revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Promised One come from God, but this man had not yet come to that point.  He did not realize that he was talking to the Word Who had become flesh, the one John proclaims as the One who was with God and who is God. In fact, no one on earth fully understood this, even the disciples who lived closely with Jesus for three years, until after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  So Jesus gently corrects this man, a man who thinks he is speaking to another man, a “good” teacher, yet still just a man. Jesus is basically saying: “Don’t call me good until you come to the point of knowing who I really am, that I am God in the flesh, realizing that if you have seen Me you have seen the Father. Only God is good, so don’t call Me a good teacher until you know that I am God, and thus am truly The Good Teacher.”

This is important because, firstly, the man did not realize that he was asking about eternal life from the One from whom all life springs, the One who is the Way the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him. It is also important because in a few moments Jesus is going to ask the man to do something that He could only ask if He is either God or one sent directly from God.

Though this man does not realize with who he is speaking, Jesus knows this man through and through. He knows his heart. He knows his life. He knows the importance of the Law in the life of this Jewish person. He knows what God requires of people. He knows the two greatest commandments. With this in mind, Jesus says the following: “You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother” (vs. 19).

The commandments listed here are key. Some have said it is just a random list of commandments, but that is far from the truth. As I mentioned before, Jesus knows this man’s heart. He knows this man has done pretty well keeping the “love thy neighbor” commands, which together are known as the second command.  This man has not killed anyone. He has not committed adultery, which is saying something. He has not stolen. He has not lied. Wow. He has defrauded no one and he loves his Mom and Dad.  Now that is what we would call an upstanding citizen. A model for society.

The fact that he is rich and can say, with apparent sincerity, “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy” (vs. 20), is absolutely amazing. Which of us can say this and be 100% sincere?  We get another clue that he is sincere when Mark adds, “Jesus looked at him and loved him” (vs. 21a). Jesus was not thinking that this guy was a fraud or a liar. He knows the fellow had done all he could to keep these commandments.

But there is a big detail here that sometimes gets lost when this account is talked about. The list Jesus gives contains only half the commands.  I think by now you know which ones He left off this list. 1) Do not have any other God before me. 2) Do not make any graven images. 3) Do not take the name of God in vain. 4) Keep the Sabbath holy. The big 4 which epitomize loving God with all your heart, you soul, your mind and your strength. Now why did Jesus leave these out when He asked the man about his obedience to the commands of God? And what about that other one, usually cited as number 10, You shall not covet?

What Jesus says next helps us answer this question. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Vs. 21b).

Ouch. Jesus says he lacks just “one” thing. But what “one” thing it is! This man is rich.  Just sell all you have, give it all away. Once you do that one thing, then you must do what I call all others to do, Come, follow me.  Jesus looks into the man’s heart and sees the thing that is deeply negatively affecting his relationship with God. In fact, it has become his god. The man’s money and possessions, though apparently gained in an honest way, are his real god, the real love in this man’s life. Will he be willing to give them up if the True God tells him to?  Or will he “covet” them so much, love them so much, that they will keep him from taking that first big step which, once he follows Jesus, will lead to eternal life, which was the question he came running to Jesus to find out about in the first place?

What follows is one of the saddest verses in the Bible. “At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (vs. 22). The man who had run up to Jesus and knelt before him, who had come to Him with so much enthusiasm and hope, goes away in sorrow. He was probably in shock. The belief at that time was that people were rich because God favored and blessed above all others. That is partly why the disciples were so confused a few verses later when Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to submit himself to God’s rule.  So the rich man could not quite understand why he had to get rid of this blessing from God. So in the end, the man probably came to believe that Jesus really was not a good teacher, that He did not speak the words of God.  For if he did think Jesus was from God, and still walked away, what a big god his riches were in his life that he rejected eternal life, rejected following Jesus, just so that he could keep his stuff.

Now, another question comes up. Is that all this passage is about? Riches? Or can we apply it to anything that, when Jesus looks deep into our hearts, He sees is the god of our life? Who or what is our true love? I believe we do this passage a great disservice if we only apply it to rich people. Yes, riches was this man’s issue. But the universal truth of what Jesus is saying boils down to the question of who is our G/god.

We know so much more about Jesus than this man did. We know the whole counsel of God. We have all four Gospels, we have Paul’s explanation of all that Jesus has done, and how He makes us right with God and provides us with eternal life. We can read Revelation and know that in the end God wins! We should know that Jesus is truly God in the flesh, the Almighty Prince of Peace, The Everlasting Father, etc., But despite all this, do we still, at least in our hearts, turn our back on Jesus in favor of all the little gods in our life that we do not want to let go of? Is it money? Is it pride? Is it not fully submitting to God for fear of what it might cost us? Do we not go where we feel God is leading us for whatever reason?  Are we fearful of denying ourselves, taking up that cross and following him? Do we put our children ahead of him? Our sex lives? Our work? Our entertainment?  Our comfort? Our relationships? Inappropriate relationships? Our body image? Our happiness? Our being able to say, “I did it my way”?  If we, like this young man, were to come before Jesus, what “one” thing would He say that we lack?  And when He calls us to give it up and follow Him, will we count the cost and still follow Him, or will we try and hang on to it. Or just turn our back on Him and keep following our trivial, worthless gods?

Let us examine our hearts. Let us acknowledge that He is who He is. And may God help us to give up anything in our lives that is or is becoming more important to us than Him.  In our own power we are weak, but in Him, and through the power of His Holy Spirit, we can make that commitment to serve and love Him with our whole heart, to truly make Him our first love, the God of our hearts and lives, and to follow Him in all that we do.