Psalm 146, 147; Isa. 60:1-17; 2 Tim. 2:14-26; Mark 10:17-31
The Lord reveals the future of the people to be more glorious than any time in their past. As darkness shrouds the rest of the world, the glory of the Lord shines in Jerusalem and reveals His chosen and the world streams to it. The image of His people in light and the rest of the world in darkness is from the Exodus when a darkness that could be felt was experienced in Egypt but not in Goshen where the Israelites were. A distinction was made between God’s people and the Egyptians and the Egyptians mostly ignored that reality and did not leave their darkness. Jesus used images of light and darkness throughout His teaching. In John’s revelation, so remarkably similar to Isaiah’s, we see this same image of the light in the city through which God’s glory is revealed in the lamp that is Jesus. Light is important from the beginning of Genesis 1 to the final chapter of the book.
The rich young man is the only one we see in the Gospels who was given the opportunity by calling to follow Jesus and walked away from Him instead. He chose his riches the comforts they could provide to Jesus. The disciples’ astonishment at the Jesus’ comment concerning the difficulty for rich people to enter the kingdom is a result in the belief in a prosperity gospel. They believed, like most did, that riches were a sign of God’s blessing in someone’s life. We can only assume that this man was a Jew since Jesus called him so the disciples were right in many ways to be shocked at Jesus’ saying and yet here we see that the riches were themselves a barrier. He wanted to have eternal life but not at the cost of the good life. This story is a living out of the parables Jesus told of the kingdom and its surpassing value, the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field. We have to lay down our claims on this kingdom in order to receive the eternal kingdom.
How often do we allow ourselves to be side-tracked by things that are unimportant? I am an unorganized person in the extreme and part of the problem is that I can never decide what is important enough to keep and what should be thrown out. After it has seasoned by being around a while it makes it easier to decide whether I need it or not. There are many things in our lives that truly serve no purpose and do nothing more than waste our time and yet we continue to allow them to take our attention away from what Paul says we should spend our time pursuing, “righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” What is it in your life that keeps you from fully following Jesus?
We bow our hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes
From evil things
Oh Lord we cast down our idols
So give us clean hands
and give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
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