Chapter 19

        "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven."

        There are many that would get angry at this verse, and it's because you are rich or your goal in life is to be rich.  Regardless of your feelings toward this passage, it remains truth.  Looking back at the story of the young ruler... the man asked Jesus what he could do to inherit eternal life.  As christians we know it is nothing you do. {Ephesians 2:8-9~ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. -NIV-} He followed all the laws of the Old Testament, yet Jesus said it wasn't enough.  Jesus exhorted him to sell all his possessions and give the income to the poor, then follow Him.  Why?  Jesus knew that his identity wasn't in Him, it was in the things he had and his wealth.   Jesus knew this man's heart did not belong to Him, but rather his actions were just to look holy on the outside.  You can't serve two masters.  It's either Jesus or money.   It's either Jesus or your job.  It's either Jesus or your family. That's why in verse 29 it says, "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life."  Jesus is not asking you to leave your family, your job, your home or your country for the heck of it.  But if any of those cause you to worship them before Him, or if any of them hinder your relationship with the Father, then He is commanding you to leave them behind.  

        Where is your treasure?  What does your heart long for?  Money or Jesus?  If you can identify with this verse and feel conviction, respond to it.  Jesus also said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."  If your identity and security is in wealth, God can change that- but you have to be willing to give up your possessions.  Anything that hinders your walk with Jesus, anything that is too important to you that you wouldn't want to give up, are the very things that you should.  There is possiblity that you can enter the kingdom of heaven, but you have to submit your entire being, everything you have, every one of your plans, for His plan and purpose for your life.  So I ask you:  Where is your identity found?  What do you treasure?  What is your security in?  Are you like the reich young ruler?  If so, will you respond differently than he did?

On Matthew Chapter 19

• Leanne