Jesus Over Possessions
Matthew 19:21-22 NIV
"Jesus answered, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."
I want to share with everyone a little lesson God taught me this past weekend that, was not only humbling but necessary. The girls and I had spent the day at a couple of different searching for plants to put in our garden this year. When we left the house, I clipped my case to my wireless headphones to my keys. As a busy mom, I tend to keep them on me at all times because their wireless capabilities make it easy to answer calls and texts while I'm wrestling the kids. At our last stop, I noticed the greenhouse had a beautiful selection of honey crisp apple trees. The price tag revealed that they were a little over budget for me, though I still would've liked to have left there with one of them in the back of my SUV. I mentioned to my mother-in-law as we left, that if I had an extra hundred dollars to spend right now, I'd come right back and purchase one of those trees for my backyard. Once we got home and unloaded everything, I went to open the case to my wireless headphones, only to realize that one of them had fallen out during the trip. After searching everywhere and calling the places we stopped at, it was nowhere to be found. I reached out to the manufacturer and the cost of a replacement would be $100. Imagine that.
In Matthew 19, a young man asks Jesus what it would take to gain eternal life. Though the boy was already following the commandments, he knew there was something he was still lacking. It was then that Jesus tells him to sell his possessions, give to the poor and follow him. This troubled the man because he had much wealth and greatly valued it. While possessions and wealth may be nice, they can cause us to lose sight of what is truly important in life, Jesus. Not to mention, we can't take them with us when we depart this earth. I was dependent on those headphones for work and leisure, and would you believe when they said it would be $100 to replace it, I went ahead with it (though I wasn't enthused about it in the least)? The problem is, while I may depend on them and they're worth the investment, I chose to depend on them and spend the money on them instead of the more Christ-like choice of the apple tree. You see, those wireless headphones- though convenient- will more than likely break or get lost again, but that apple tree is God's creation that will produce fruit for years to come. In turn, I failed at showing God my dependency on him by choosing my dependency on technology. Possessions can rule our life. We can even put them before Jesus if we're not careful. This is why He makes this statement. But when we humble ourselves and shake ourselves free of the bondage of many and elaborate possessions, we free up more room for Him who should be first place. He who should rule our lives.
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