Becomes the Possible

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

BECOMES THE POSSIBLE

Luke 18:26-30

26 Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?" 27 Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."  28 Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!" 29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God   30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." 

 NIV

After hearing what Jesus said to the rich young ruler about selling all his possessions and giving them to the poor then come and follow him, and how the ruler felt sad because he had much wealth and could not serve God, because he needed to serve his money. Then Jesus made that statement about how hard it would be for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Now his disciples are wondering who can be saved, and they are now thinking about themselves. They might also be thinking about how they will be effective in advancing the kingdom, by witnessing to people who have lots of money, more than they do. What Jesus says is the center point of everything about our lives as believers. Two major points, the first being; “What is impossible with men, is possible with God”. We would think Jesus is referring to salvation, that it is impossible for us to save ourselves, but of course, it is not so with God. However, if we take that and apply it to life in general, we could see that same truth being played out in the lives of believers. Once again, we could try to claw our way to the top, or make all our exquisite human efforts to attain certain qualifications to achieve our goals in life, or we could simply believe God will see to it that we become what he has planned for us to be. That is He is the one who became everything within us, but sending the Spirit to convict us of our sins and need to repent, and come to him, to turn around the way we think, and instead of looking to ourselves, we look to him. Then God continues to work within us, as we were saved by grace,  the unmerited favor of God, and we are living by grace, his divine influence upon our hearts and how that is reflected in our lives. All that we are, all that we have, and all that we do, some of it might be possible for us, but all of it is not only possible with God but is totally completed by God, to perfection. Sure, we have some skills or talents, and some education, with the ability to reason, and comprehend an amount of what we believe are truths. But the Spirit leads us into, not just some, but all truth, so that as we follow Jesus with all our hearts wide open and listening to the voice of the Spirit, who dwells within us, we will become all that God desires us to be, have all that God gifts us, and achieve all that God determines for us, even what appears to us as impossible, becomes the possible.