Like Children

#38 Sept 21, 2015

 2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.

 Matthew 19:26

 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The verse we are memorizing this week is part of a larger section in Matt 19: called “The Rich Young Man” or “The Rich and The Kingdom” After Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce and blesses the little children as those who have the Kingdom of heaven He is confronted by a young man who asks the question: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” He must not have heard Jesus talking about the children. The children do nothing, are open, honest, simple, gullible, not ambitious, no agenda, and trusting, they were being children and they have the Kingdom!

Jesus says: “if you want to enter life keep the commandments”. Still the man presses on he did not have the peace he sought and asked which ones? Jesus gives him the commands that have to do with our relationship with each other. These I have kept he replies, “What do I still lack?” Assurance of eternal life eluded him. Was it because he was very rich? That appears to be the case because Jesus asks him to give his wealth to the poor and to follow him. The rich man could not do it, he trusted in his wealth instead of following and trusting Jesus. He was not like the children Jesus blessed who would have had no trouble with it. If only we would trust like children and not put our emphases on the things of this world.

Our culture is changing: donations are hard to come by and it has influenced the church, the people of the church. Important ministries are folding or consolidating because of the lack of funds. God has blessed followers of Jesus but it could be as it was with the rich man in our verses, we are not willing to part with the blessings, not the spiritual blessings or the material blessings. Are we really following Jesus?

The disciples are amazed at Jesus response to the rich man: “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” For many years the metaphor of the “Camel’s Gate” has circulated: There is a small gate in the wall of the city where unloaded camels and their owners can crawl though after the main gate is closed. A great example of trusting Jesus: get read of all that stuff and get on your knees. It is a great story but there is no proof that such a gate ever existed.

 What is true is what Jesus says to his disciples when they say: “who then can be saved?” “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” Jesus replies.

That is how we are all saved, we have nothing to offer, we simply must trust Jesus completely like a small child. Praise be to God!

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