Matthew 19:16-22,”16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” 17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
I am a firm believer of going out of my way to speak to the lost about the gospel. There is nothing wrong witnessing with our lifestyle which is important, I just believe we live in a time where people are not searching to know the truth and therefore we have to go out of our way and awaken them to their need of a Savior. For the last 20 years I have been a Christian, I have never encountered with anyone who came to me to ask how they can be saved or the hope that is in me. The bible says in John 3:19, “and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil”. This is one of the reasons people are not seeking to be saved, they love darkness and they don’t want the light to expose it so they will not ask.
I will share another reason why people don’t ask shortly. Mathew 19, Mark 10 and Luke 18 tells us about a young rich ruler who out of nowhere came to Jesus and asked, “…Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” . There is a lot to chew on this verse alone. If someone came and asked me how they can receive eternal life, I would really rejoice for I have never had anyone do that. Anyway, we would ask ourselves many questions as to the intentions of this young rich ruler. Mark the things that describe him, he was young, rich and a ruler. He had everything going for him. What would make a man of his status seek to know what he was to do to have eternal life? Perhaps he wanted to make sure he got it right, or he wanted to see if Jesus really knew what it took to have eternal life or maybe he was really seeking the truth.
Look at how he addresses Jesus, “Good Teacher…”, his introduction of Jesus already raises a red flag. First, Jesus was more than a good teacher, He was (is) the Messiah, the Savior of the world. He was God in the flesh and no one who has a wrong understanding of who He is can be saved. Today in talking to people, they are ok saying Jesus was a good teacher, a good prophet, a good man and even Son of God. See their faces change when you declare that Jesus Christ was (is) God.
Then the rich man asked “…what good thing shall do that I may have eternal life?” This is the second red flag, this man thought you had to do good things to have eternal life, he just was wasn’t sure of what “good” thing he had to do and how much of it. Romans 3:20 corrects our understanding by saying, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight…” He had a bag of what he called good, he was ready to go into his bag of what he called good things the moment Jesus would tell him of what they were.
You may be reading this devo and you are not saved or soundly saved and like the rich young ruler, you have a wrong understanding of who Jesus is, or you may be thinking that you have good things to be saved. You may want to hear what these good things are so that you can pull them out of your bag. We’ll find out how Jesus dealt with his potential convert. To continue., blessings Ev
He Has Magnified His Word 