In Mark 10:17-31, a man runs up to Jesus, falls on his knees and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells the man to obey the commandments, which Jesus then lists for him. When the man replies that he has kept all those commandments, Jesus replies, “One thing you lack…”

Do you think the man was feeling pretty good at that point? He’s thrown himself on his knees in front of Jesus and declared that he’s kept the commandments. And now Jesus is telling him he only lacks one thing to inherit eternal life.

That’s when things taken an unpleasant turn for the man.

Jesus tells the him to sell everything he owns, give the money to the poor and then come follow Him. It’s essentially what He said to Peter, Andrew, James and John. He called those men to follow Him and they immediately left everything behind and went with Him.

They didn’t hesitate. They didn’t debate. They didn’t talk it over. They didn’t try to make a deal with Jesus. They left everything and followed Him.

That’s not what the man in Mark 10 does though. He went away sad because he was very wealthy. Jesus then goes on to tell His disciples how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven.

So why is it so hard?

Because the wealthy have made their money, their pleasure and their personal comfort their god.

Is Jesus saying that money is evil and that everyone must sell everything they have? No. The problem this man had was that his money was an idol. It was his god. To him, Jesus wasn’t just telling him to give his money away, He was telling him to give his god away. And the man was unwilling to do that. He chose his god and it wasn’t going to be Jesus.

Money, comfort and pleasure are excellent servants. But they’re terrible gods.

Now consider what the man gave up. Jesus promised him “treasure in heaven” and invited him to be one of His followers. Later, when Peter declares, “We have left everything to follow You!”, Jesus tells His disciples that no one who has made sacrifices to follow Him will fail to receive much more in return in both this life and in the life to come.

The man gave up following the one true God to hold onto his false god. He forfeited eternal life to gain the fleeting pleasures of this life.

By the way, if you live in the United States and make $25,000 a year–you’re among the wealthiest 10% of people in the world. No, I didn’t mistakenly leave off a zero. That’s $25,000, not $250,000. And if you make $75,000 a year–you’re among the wealthiest 1% of people in the world.

When Jesus talks about the rich, He’s talking about most of us. If you’re reading these words, it means you have access to a computer. That means you probably also have access to clean water, food, air conditioning and medical care. I think Jesus would consider you wealthy. As He does me.

So that makes us susceptible to the same temptation as the man in Mark 10. It’s tempting to make money our god. Our idol. The thing we can’t give up. The thing we want more of can’t quite seem to get enough of. The thing that occupies most of our thoughts.

The man wanted to know what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. So Jesus told him he only lacked one thing: get rid of the false god you’ve been following and “then come, follow me.”

Are you following Jesus wholeheartedly? Or is there “one thing you lack?”

Does money, comfort and pleasure come before Jesus?

Isn’t it interesting that we say we need to pray about whether or not to financially support a missionary, but it would never occur to us to pray about whether or not to buy a pizza and instead give that money away?

Would any of us ever consider giving up a vacation to help a neighbor in need?

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with eating pizza or taking vacations. That is unless they’ve become symptomatic of having the wrong god.