All Things Possible

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

ALL THINGS POSSIBLE

Mark 10:24-27

24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?" 27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

NIV

We are still in the middle of this whole conversation about the rich and the difficultly of letting go of it in order to enter the kingdom of God. We are now seeing Jesus explaining just how hard it is for those who cling to their material goods to get into the kingdom. We know the needle was the name of one of the gates  into the city of Jerusalem and that at night it would be closed except for a small enough opening for a person to get through and that there would be absolutely no way that a camel could get through. Again we should remember the rich man who started all this dialog would not let go of his wealth. This was most likely because he had placed his trust in his material possessions, his wealth, even though he was trying to live a holy and righteous life. Here we see the disciples worried about how people, especially people who put their trust in their wealth. Could it be that some of the disciples, who we usually think as poor simply men, have some form of wealth. Peter, James and John we know were fisherman, a fairly good paying profession of the day. We know Matthew was a tax collector, not poor by any means. Could it be the others also had a certain amount of material goods they were sort of counting on for their later years as well? If the disciples had started thinking about their own situations in light of the conversation Jesus had with the rich man, and now with them, he surely reassured them. If we are thinking about salvation in any human way, it is impossible. We cannot earn it, we cannot buy it, and we simply cannot have it in our human abilities. All self-reliance has to be thrown out the window. All trust in anything on the earth must be cast off. It is only by the grace of God that we can be saved. We cannot even live a life well enough; we cannot be holy and righteous enough to get into the kingdom of God. We cannot, but he can. Jesus was telling them people must come to him with their whole heart, forsaking all for him, not keeping a portion of their hearts and minds bend toward their material goods or even their families as we shall see in the rest of this dialog between Jesus and his disciples. But for now, we should simply consider that it is God who saves us, and we should come trusting with our whole heart, leaving all else behind and once saved not returning to trusting in those things. With us it is impossible we God all things are possible.