Missionary Renegade: The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Thursday, 5 May 2016 "A man who saddened Jesus by passing on a second chance"

Friday, May 6, 2016

The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Thursday, 5 May 2016 "A man who saddened Jesus by passing on a second chance"

Thursday, 05 May 2016 - "A man who saddened Jesus by passing on a second chance"
Daily Scripture: Mark 10:17 As he was starting on his way, a man ran up, kneeled down in front of him and asked, “Good rabbi, what should I do to obtain eternal life?” 18 Yeshua said to him, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good except God! 19 You know the mitzvot — ‘Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, don’t defraud, honor your father and mother, . . .’”[Mark 10:19 Exodus 20:12–13(16); Deuteronomy 5:16–17(20)] 20 “Rabbi,” he said, “I have kept all these since I was a boy.” 21 Yeshua, looking at him, felt love for him and said to him, “You’re missing one thing. Go, sell whatever you own, give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me!” 22 Shocked by this word, he went away sad; because he was a wealthy man.

23 Yeshua looked around and said to his talmidim, “How hard it is going to be for people with wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” 24 The talmidim were astounded at these words; but Yeshua said to them again, “My friends, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! 25 It’s easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Reflection Questions:

A devout, apparently earnest young man asked Jesus what he needed to do to obtain eternal life. Jesus “looked at him carefully and loved him,” and identified his fixation on wealth as his main spiritual obstacle. Unwilling and unable to reset his priorities, the man went away sad. Jesus startled his disciples with a hyperbolic image (“a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle”) about the difficulty of breaking wealth’s grip on a human heart.

Jesus' words were personal for that particular young man, not a general command for all Christians. There were other affluent people in the Bible (e.g. Abraham in Genesis, Zacchaeus in Luke 19) who did not hear that they should sell all they had. What was the heart issue Jesus wanted the young man to face up to? What made it so hard for him to respond to Jesus' call?
Mark’s story wasn’t a general command, but Jesus' startling image of trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle does confront each of us with the question, “Are any of my possessions so precious to me that I’d choose them over following Jesus?” We know how the young man answered, turning away from the second chance Jesus offered. Have you ever wrestled with that difficult question? How would you answer it?

Today’s Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you offer me heaven’s riches. Give me a heart that can accurately assess the treasure of your kingdom, valuing it properly against any other claims. Amen.Insights from Janelle Gregory

Janelle Gregory serves on the Resurrection staff as a Human Resources Specialist.
My son was upset with me the other day. I had been looking over his homework, and I noticed he had answered a few incorrectly.
Me: Here, let me help you.
Son: Why do you have to be so mean?
Me: Mean for wanting to help you?
Son: No, mean for telling me I’m a failure.
There was a long conversation that followed with the explanation that I was trying to be nice and that it would have been meaner had I not pointed it out or offered to help. Let me tell you – that rationale doesn’t always go over well with a 14 year-old.
He didn’t want his mistakes to be pointed out. He didn’t want to be told he was wrong. He’d rather be blissfully wrong in the dark than corrected in the light.
I can’t say that I blame him. I don’t like it when people point out things that I’ve done wrong.
But I don’t want to make the same mistake he made. I don’t want to be blissfully unaware (mostly). There are times when God points things out in our lives that we’d rather not see. It’s up to us as to what we do with this information.
Ignoring God doesn’t make those things go away. Mistakes will be there whether we admit to them or not, and disregarding them just perpetuates the problem. Just like I was happy to help my son, God is happy to be here for us when we need assistance. But without admitting there is a problem, it’s hard to take that help. So let’s try to be open to God when we hear him say, “Here, let me help you.”