Only One Priority

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

ONLY ONE PRIORITY

Luke 18:18-25

18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good — except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"  21 "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said. 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."  23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, 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." 

NIV

We are very familiar with this exchange between Jesus and this rich ruler. However, it is interesting there may be another way to begin this exchange when we examine the Greek text. It might be read as a rich ruler asked Master, what good must I do to inherit eternal life? No other translations have read it that way, which makes us wonder why some of the ancient texts render it as the rich young ruler, saying, “O teacher, what good must I do to inherit eternal life. Yet the response of Jesus does make it clear the ruler called him “Good Teacher” or “Good Master”. In the Gospel of Mark, we find this young ruler came running to Jesus and fell on his knees asking this question. Then we would have to agree that he called Jesus a good teacher because of the response of Jesus. But Jesus makes two points. First, there is no one good except God. Here is where we run into some difficulty because there are scholars that argue this proves Jesus was not a deity, or there is no trinity because he said only God is good, which would not include him for he did not accept the title of “Good Teacher” or being good, because God is the one who is good. Still, we think because this ruler was Jewish, Jesus was using this young ruler’s understanding of God and his commandments. At this point, the Jews did not understand anything about a triune Godhead. Jesus has already taught his disciples that He and the Father are one, so they might think of him as the same as God or the Son of God. Nevertheless, we know without any doubt that Jesus is God and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God, one and only one God, and that God is always good, and we are not always good. This is where this question hits home. We cannot do anything good enough to inherit eternal life. We will never be good enough in our lives, or in our following the commands of God, or any rules and regulations that we make up from what we believe the scripture says. What we also know is that Jesus said that we should seek first his kingdom, that should be the number one priority in our lives. We do not think that we can be bold enough to say that once we find the kingdom we can go on trying to follow all the rules instead of living by faith, which is the only way to find the kingdom that gives us eternal life. The final statement of Jesus proves that so clearly, we can only find eternal life in Jesus, and we cannot serve two masters, wealth can be a stumbling block that makes someone like a camel that cannot enter through the eye of a needle or the gate into the kingdom. Jesus did not say a rich man could not enter, but how hard it would be for him to enter because his wealth was his priority in life. Let us always make Jesus not only our first priority but our only priority in life.