Give it Away

“Give it away, give it away, give it away now!”, as the Red Hot Chili Peppers once sang. I don’t remember the song that well to tell you what they were requesting for you to give away, but it goes along with the idea of “treasure” I’ve been talking about the last two days.

In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus meets a young man asking what he needed to do to get into heaven. Jesus already knew this young man’s heart and what mattered most to him, but He answered his question. Jesus told the young man to follow the commandments of Moses which the young man replied that he had followed all of them to the letter since he was a child. That was a lie.

So Jesus continued straight to the heart of this young man, who was considerably wealthy, telling him to sell all of his possessions (treasures) and give the money to the poor. This task was just too hard for the young man to accomplish and he went away sorrowful because the Bible says, “he had great possessions” or treasures.

As Christians, we know that neither following the Ten Commandments or giving away your possessions will get you into heaven. We don’t get to Heaven by works but by grace. The point of the story was giving up the things of this life to surrender our lives to follow Christ just like His twelve disciples had done. This young man’s treasure was the stumbling block to the true treasure of knowing the Savior.

What is so important to you that you are unwilling to give it up in order to surrender everything to Christ?  Christ wants to know that, in your heart, you are willing to give it all up to be submissive to Him. Just like Abraham and the near sacrifice of his promised son, Isaac. He wants to know that we are willing to let go of what you think matters most. What are you willing to sacrifice to follow after Him?

Have a great day and God bless.