A leader asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replied. “No one is good except God alone. 

You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother.’ “All these things,” he said to Him, “I have kept since my youth.”When Jesus heard these words, He said to him, “One thing you still lack: sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow Me.” When he heard these words, he became very sad, for he was very wealthy. Jesus saw that he had become very sad and said: “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” Those who were listening said, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible for humans is possible for God.” Then Peter said, “Look, we have left everything and followed You.” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left home, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this present age, and in the age to come, eternal life.”^[1]

This was the final stage of the Lord Jesus’ earthly ministry before His crucifixion, and one of the last people He spoke to was the rich young man. From a social standpoint, this young man had everything he needed. In Israel at that time, there were many poor people, and this young man was privileged because he was wealthy. However, the fact that he was young and rich did not mean that he was happy. Neither youth nor money brings happiness to anyone. The human soul’s thirst for God cannot be quenched by these things. Man was created with a void within that can be filled only by his Creator.

This young man came to the Lord Jesus seeking to fill that void. He was the only One who could provide a solution to this problem. We must come running to the Lord, seeking Him with all our hearts as long as He can be found.^[2] This young man was aware that the Lord Jesus possessed the truth, that He is the Son of God; that is why he fell to the ground before Him. The young man asked the right question; he asked how he could be saved. There are three things that lead to salvation: repentance, faith, and following the Lord Jesus. If someone is not willing to follow Him, it is impossible for them to be saved. True repentance is this: “But even now,” says the Lord, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning!”^[3]—this is true return to God. The fact that a person stands up and claims to have received the Lord Jesus into their heart means nothing. Repentance must be in a person’s heart; there must be weeping over sin and sorrow. Repentance must last our whole lives; we must acknowledge our guilt before Him and never forget the sins from which He has delivered us. When the people of Israel repented, they would put on sackcloth, throw themselves face down in the dust, and weep over their sin. David describes the moment of his repentance as follows: “As long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality withered away like the earth in the summer drought. Then I confessed my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord!’ And You forgave the guilt of my sin.”^[4]

We come to the Lord Jesus with repentance; otherwise, we come in vain. This rich young man lacked repentance. He came to the Lord with a very high opinion of himself. Unless we break our hearts before Him, we cannot receive forgiveness and deliverance; unless we are grieved over our sins. The Lord Jesus reminds him of the commandments of the Law, holding up a “mirror” before him. The young man needed to examine himself and see how defiled he was in the Lord’s presence. Instead, he told a lie by claiming that he had kept all the commandments, because no one could keep the entire Law. Jesus was the only one who could. Then the Lord gave him the final test to reveal his heart. He asked him to give up everything he had and then follow Him. Following the Lord Jesus meant facing ridicule and even putting one’s life in danger.

Anyone who wants to follow the Lord Jesus must realize that without self-denial, it is impossible to follow Him. The Lord Jesus loved this young man, but He expected true repentance, faith, and self-denial. If we love Him, we will leave everything for His sake, if He asks us to. The devil will come to tell us that if we follow the Lord Jesus, we will lose our lives. This is his lie, which he uses to turn back those who decide to follow Him. But the Lord Jesus says: “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”^[5] This young man did the math and figured that if he followed the Lord, he would lose everything he had on this earth, but he failed to realize that he was about to lose his eternal life. The Lord Jesus told us from the very beginning that we would have tribulation in the world, but that He has overcome the world, and we, through the power He gives us, can also overcome.^[6]

The Lord Jesus endured every possible humiliation so that humanity might be saved. The Lord Jesus asks us to take up our cross every day, to die to ourselves daily. This young man was not willing to die to himself, to his desires and lusts, but he lost the opportunity of his life. He lost the chance to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus. The young man believed that the Lord’s path was too difficult to follow, without considering that the Lord Himself is the One who helps, the One who gives us the strength to follow Him. He said: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”^[7] The Son of God speaks the truth; the one who turns us away from His path is the devil. The Lord’s standard is high, but He has His faithful remnant who follow Him even unto death. This is the calling of each one of us: self-denial and complete trust in God. The disciples had given up everything they had for the Lord. The Lord Jesus tells Peter that their renunciation of everything they had on this earth will be richly rewarded both on earth and in heaven: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or his wife, or his brothers, or his parents, or his children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this present age, and in the age to come, eternal life.”^[8] We give up things of little value, and the Lord rewards us with eternal life, eternal joy in the presence of God.

Paul says of himself: “I, who was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as for the Law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, a persecutor of the Church; as for the righteousness that comes from the Law, blameless. But whatever gains I had, I have come to regard as a loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I now regard all these things as a loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have lost all things and count them as rubbish, so that I may gain Christ.”^[9]

Love for the world and for all the things in the world is a great sin in God’s eyes. Zacchaeus, who was the chief tax collector (a sort of finance minister in our day), came to the Lord in repentance. And Zacchaeus came just like the rich young man, running to the Lord, but he acknowledged his guilt and sin before the Lord. The Lord Jesus did not ask him to sell everything he had in order to follow Him, but Zacchaeus himself determined what he needed to give up as a result of his sins: “I will give half of my wealth to the poor; and if I have wronged anyone in any way, I will repay them fourfold.”^[10]

Jesus said to the many who were following Him: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brothers, his sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.”^[11] If we do not love Him more than anything else in our lives, we cannot be His disciples. If we do not make the Lord the purpose of our existence, we are not His disciples.

The Lord Jesus wants us entirely for Himself—to be His disciples, wholly devoted with all our hearts. Many call themselves “disciples of the Lord,” but they keep their lives for themselves. If those who do not know the true God give their lives for a non-existent god, for a form of religion that leads them to hell, how much more should we give our lives to the Lord Jesus, who wants to make something good out of us, who wants to glorify His Name through our holy conduct. The Lord Jesus has a great reward for all who choose to follow Him. Those who despise His call choose the rubbish of a world that is doomed to destruction.^[12]

^[1] Luke 18:18–30.

^[2] Isaiah 55:6.

^[3] Joel 2:12.

^[4] Psalm 32:3–5.

^[5] Matthew 10:39.

^[6] John 16:33.

^[7] Matthew 11:29, 30.

^[8] Luke 18:29, 30.

^[9] Philippians 3:5–8.

^[10] Luke 19:8.

^[11] Luke 14:26, 27.

^[12] 2 Peter 3:10.