On Sunday morning we were thinking about our treasures. The rich young ruler, whose encounter with Jesus in recorded in Mark 10.17-31, shows the demands of Jesus that we be ready to surrender our wealth, to be 'downwardly mobile', and to enrich others. Would this man do what to all the world looked like madness, and walk away from career and comforts to follow Jesus? In the evening we looked at Genesis 22, the heart-searing call of God to Abraham to surrender his treasure, his only, dearly loved son, Isaac. Could he trust God enough with the joy of his heart? And could he truly believe that, through this appalling sacrifice, God really was good, and could alone be the treasure of his heart?
Both scenarios call for a faith in God which naturally we are light-years away from. We don't want to surrender our dearest riches, be they family, wealth, or whatever else we hold close. We want to keep them, and guard them, away from the dangers of what man might do to them. Or the dangers of what God might do.
Would you want to give up your riches so that you found yourself far less well-off than you currently are, refocusing your whole life and loves so that others might become truly rich as you learn to give up your comforts for them? Would you want to see your own child off to the pain and sacrifice of mission, to live with hardship and danger, called to sacrifice daily for their faith, maybe with the risk of paying the ultimate price because of their faith in God? Would you ever dare cast yourself on God so completely that you not only contemplate, but actually embrace, the radical life of cross-bearing with all that that may bring?
Three encouragements for all of us as we struggle to live as Jesus calls us to:
1. God gave His best
God did. God the Father took His Son, His only Son, Jesus, His heart's delight, and gave Him up to the Cross. He did not spare His own Son (Ro. 8.32, clearly echoing Abraham's sacrifice). His gift of Jesus to us guarantees His total, unconditional and lavish grace to us, His dearly loved children through Christ. God gave His best, and continues to give His best love to us in Jesus every day. Our confidence in Him can be total. And so can our commitment to His ways.
2. The Son's self-giving is the pattern of our self-giving
There are two rich young rulers in Mark 10. One who left Jesus sad, because he had great wealth, which had stolen his heart. The other one is Jesus Himself. He gave up His riches and rule as He took flesh and entered our humanity. He gave up the promise of His young life as He went to the Cross. He is the true man, whose greatness in sacrifice wins our salvation and patterns our discipleship. 'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thought He was rich, yet for your sake His became poor, so that you, through His poverty, might become rich' (2 Corinthians 8.9). To be enriched by Him means to live enriching others (compare 2 Corinthians 6.10).
3. With God all things are possible
God the Holy Spirit unlocks greedy hearts, breaks sinful, slavish addictions, and opens grasping hands to make them generous. He gifts faith in the first place, to make us leave our worthless treasures and to come to Christ, the pearl of greatest price and beauty. God the Holy Spirit kindles the fire of sacrifice in our hearts. The same Spirit Who shows us how rich we are in Christ gives us the crowning joy we experience as we give away, safe in the knowledge that real life and wealth are safe in heaven.
So, trust Him. Trust God, as you follow what is sometimes His hard Providence. Trust the Spirit's promptings, to go without, get rid, give up and offer to others what we never needed in the first place, all to the honour of Christ. Then you will have treasure in Heaven.
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