The Peril of Possessions: Not Only Do We Need to Obey God, We Must Follow the Teachings of Jesus!

 

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,

knelt down before him, and asked him,

"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good?

No one is good but God alone.

You know the commandments: You shall not kill;

you shall not commit adultery;

you shall not steal;

you shall not bear false witness;

you shall not defraud;

honor your father and your mother."

He replied and said to him,

"Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth."

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,

"You are lacking in one thing.

Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor

and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

At that statement, his face fell,

and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,

"How hard it is for those who have wealth

to enter the Kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words.

So Jesus again said to them in reply,

"Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle

than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God."

They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves,

"Then who can be saved?"

Jesus looked at them and said,

"For men it is impossible, but not for God.

All things are possible for God."

~Mark 10:17-27

What is more important, money or Heaven? Things of this world or living in Spirit? We need to live for God! He wants to love us and have us love Him! He wants to know us! We are called to follow Jesus! He is our example, model to follow and reflect in life. Nothing of this Earth world gives life like Jesus does. Material possessions, power, gold, carnal desires, things of this world are not what will get us into Heaven. We are given a chance through Jesus Christ, when we follow and reflect Him. When we obey God, live by the teachings of Jesus, and be people of goodwill, not trying to acquire things of this world, giving it all away to the poor and know that our true treasure is in Heaven with Jesus. It seems to be hard for many elected, rich, powers that be all seem to forget this. They live without God and do not have Jesus in them, they think they can cheat, steal, lie, be greedy, corrupt, commit fraud, and do so many evil and wicked things, and think they can get into Heaven. God gives us a lot of good advice in the Bible, like the passage from Mark above, we need to follow the 10 Commandments, we need to follow the teachings of Jesus and reflect Him in our lives, we need to be people of goodwill and life like Jesus, not thinking that we can accumulate things of this world. We cannot strive to be rich and powerful, not rulers, not people of power, we need to put our focus on God, live in Spirit and know He will always provide, we do not need riches of this world, and we cannot take them with us when we leave here anyway, why would we, in Heaven it has everything and more than what is offered here. There is a real peril in possessions! In the Prayer of the Application of the Holy Spirit, there is one special phrase that I love and it reminds me of this Bible verse and it is so true, "I never want to be separated from you, even and in spite of all material illusion I wish to be with you in eternal Glory!"