Do we really want more of God?

DO WE REALLY WANT MORE OF GOD?

BLOG HOST, 9-22-2010

HOST:  JAY MARTIN

Matthew 19

            I like to believe that I want to be in the center of God’s will for my life.  I like to tell myself that while I am not perfect, I am a pretty good follower of Jesus Christ.  Then, I am confronted with the reality of the cost of discipleship, and I am not even sure I am that great of a Christian.  I remember getting saved—I was thirteen years old.  I remember getting baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit—I was nineteen.  I remember accepting the call to ministry—at twenty-one, I said yes to this bi-vocational, and sometimes difficult duality of being an attorney and a minister.  I remember saying yes to the specific assignment of inner-city ministry.  I said yes twelve years ago, and I still say yes today. 

            But the call is to give everything.  Have I ever given everything?  Have I ever had the abandon to really want more of God?  Am I the rich young ruler?  Are you?  Do we have some of the same characteristics?

            In today’s reading, Matthew 19, we are introduced to a would-be disciple, this rich young ruler, who seeks Jesus out.  I think he has faith, I think he is probably a pretty good Jew—he is keeping the “be good to each other” requirements of the Ten Commandments.  He is hopeful—I believe he even thinks he wants more of God.  Yet, what he believes will be an amazing meeting with Jesus, this amazing One who many believed was the Messiah who was to come, left him crest-fallen and deflated.  Jesus sets the cost high—everything.  He had to sell everything and give it to the poor before he could come follow God’s perfect will for his life. 

            What would we do?  What do I do?  I think I’m generous.  I think I care.  I think I am laying up treasure in heaven, and yet here are these amazingly hard, and even harsh words of Jesus to a young man who seems to have been living pretty good.

            Are His words any less hard to us today?  Do we still have to make this kind of commitment to be Jesus’ disciple?  Was this just because Jesus was trying to get to the heart of some issue with this one particular person?  Can I blame this confrontation on some facts about this young man that I just don’t have?  All we know is that he was rich, he was young, and he kept some commandments according to him.  That’s all.

            What if we were the rich young ruler?  Would we have been a follower?  Would things have been different for us?

            What if that is still the price of discipleship today?  What if getting closer to God means selling everything and giving it to the poor?  Do I really want more of God?  Are Jesus’ words really for us today?  Do we really want more of God?  

            Is there anything, whether money or the lack thereof, or some other thing keeping us from full devotion to Jesus?  We can deal with it or . . . .“And he went away sad, because he had great possessions.”