Day 69: It's So Hard!

Mark 10:21-25

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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.”

Comments

Jesus loved this man and spoke to him not out of anger, but out of a loving concern that the man’s wealth was not bringing him true life, but keeping him from it.

Such an attitude was as preposterous to the disciples as the idea of a camel going through the eye of a needle. Their perspective, shared by all in that culture, was that wealth was a blessing from God and poverty a curse. Surely, they thought, those who were blessed by God would be the first to enter the kingdom.

Reflections

Jesus taught that the advantages of wealth in this world were disadvantages when it came to God’s kingdom. In what way does your understanding of wealth fit in with or stand against what Jesus is teaching here?

If this rich man had the wrong attitude toward wealth, what would a right attitude look like?

Prayer

Help me, Lord, not to be so blinded by the pursuit of wealth that I lose all sense of the problems it creates.