Daily Devotion – October 6, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Mark 10:17-31
10:17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
10:18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
10:19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'”
10:20 He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”
10:21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
10:22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
10:23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”
10:24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!
10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
10:26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”
10:27 Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
10:28 Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”
10:29 Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,
10:30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age–houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions–and in the age to come eternal life.
10:31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Why is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God? Let’s start with what Jesus was always saying was the most important: the Main Thing. Jesus was always talking about God as Father, as parent. As someone you’d really want your relationship to be right with. Someone you would care for who would also care for you. One obvious way to keep a solid relationship with someone important to you is to stay in touch, to listen, and in turn to be heard.

Maybe when we are rich or contented, we have a lot of things to distract us. We forget what the Main Thing is, and so we forget to keep the Main Thing the main thing. Maybe when we are rich or contented, we rest from our struggles (or believe we don’t have any), and we have nothing to overcome and nothing to be grateful for. Maybe we don’t live in gratitude to God anymore because we think we made our richness and contentment all by ourselves.

It may be that the simpler our lives are, the more central and obvious God is to us. Maybe it is very hard for rich contented folks to make that time every day to keep the Main Thing the main thing. I know that my aged mother awakes in the morning very foggy and bewildered, and then she gets out of bed and takes her seat by her bedroom window and reads her devotions out of a large-print book. After that, she is less foggy, and she travels to the kitchen to make her coffee. God before coffee. That is keeping the Main Thing the main thing. She might not put it that way, but the result is unmistakable.

It’s not really about money. It’s about how we order time and energy. Keeping the Main Thing the main thing brings not only a sure and certain future but a much clearer present.

Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being with us forever.  Help us to pay attention to that fact and love you back every single day without fail. No matter how young or old we are.  Amen.