Today's Reading: Matthew 19: 16-22
**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.
Please click this link to read Matthew 19: 16-22
Bible Study
This is a passage about you and me, about how we can get rid of those things blocking us that we cannot follow Jesus.
N.T. Wright gives us a good teaching:
This is where Jesus' approach is different in kind from those of other Jewish groups. Instead of more complex legal instructions, he has the simplest of commands: sell up, give it away and follow me. There is something ironic about the way he says it here: 'If you want to complete the set...'. In Matthew, being 'complete' - the same word can mean 'perfect', actually! - is the challenge of the Sermon on the Mount (5.48). It's a way of saying, 'God wants his people to be complete, totally dedicated to his service, not half-and-half people, with one foot in the kingdom and the other in the world.' The young man seems to want almost to collect commandments he's kept, like one might collect coins or butterflies or antique furniture. All right, says Jesus, this is the one that will complete your collection: give everything away! In order to be complete, you must be empty. In order to have everything, you must have nothing. In order to be fully signed up to God's service, you must be signed off from everything else.
As with the previous comments about celibacy, this commandment was not given to everybody. Jesus doesn't often seem to have told people to give away everything and follow him. When he did, it was either because, as in the case of the Twelve, he wanted them to be free so that they could be with him all the time and share his work; or because, as with this young man, he sensed that his possessions had become his idol, his alternative god, the demon that would eventually kill him unless he renounced it.
We all have something like that in our lives. It may well not be material possessions: in our world, as in that of Jesus, not many people are very rich. It is up to each of us to examine our own hearts and lives to see what is holding us back from serving God with the 'completeness' which Jesus longs for.
N.T. Wright gives us a good teaching:
This is where Jesus' approach is different in kind from those of other Jewish groups. Instead of more complex legal instructions, he has the simplest of commands: sell up, give it away and follow me. There is something ironic about the way he says it here: 'If you want to complete the set...'. In Matthew, being 'complete' - the same word can mean 'perfect', actually! - is the challenge of the Sermon on the Mount (5.48). It's a way of saying, 'God wants his people to be complete, totally dedicated to his service, not half-and-half people, with one foot in the kingdom and the other in the world.' The young man seems to want almost to collect commandments he's kept, like one might collect coins or butterflies or antique furniture. All right, says Jesus, this is the one that will complete your collection: give everything away! In order to be complete, you must be empty. In order to have everything, you must have nothing. In order to be fully signed up to God's service, you must be signed off from everything else.
As with the previous comments about celibacy, this commandment was not given to everybody. Jesus doesn't often seem to have told people to give away everything and follow him. When he did, it was either because, as in the case of the Twelve, he wanted them to be free so that they could be with him all the time and share his work; or because, as with this young man, he sensed that his possessions had become his idol, his alternative god, the demon that would eventually kill him unless he renounced it.
We all have something like that in our lives. It may well not be material possessions: in our world, as in that of Jesus, not many people are very rich. It is up to each of us to examine our own hearts and lives to see what is holding us back from serving God with the 'completeness' which Jesus longs for.
So, do you know what is holding you back from serving God?
Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"
Spiritual Journal
What I heard from Jesus today is: What is holding you back from serving God?
What I received from Jesus today is somewhat like a photo or video album for me to look back at all those critical moments of my life since I had my born again experience in 1981 and then his call for me to go into seminary preparing myself to be a servant of him.
Like the rich young man I did give up lots of things, my secure jobs, my fiancee , my home in Hong Kong, my bad habits, my money, my house ...lots more. Every time when I insisted on my own way did not want to give up those things Jesus wanted me to, I was stuck and unable to serve him fully. Every time I listened and obeyed I was free again and being anointed to do His Kingdom work wonderfully! What's the difference? The difference is STUCK or FREE!
So, what is holding you back from serving Jesus?
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to know what is holding us back from serving you and be willing to give up those things. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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