Christian Devotional – June 15, 2021

The Gospels through the Summer, Day 19

Read Matthew 19. As Jesus continues to share with his disciples and with others, a young man approaches him to ask a question that many of us to day also ask. What must I do to be saved? Jesus begins by leading him through several of the commandments and laws that the man would be familiar with. Then comes the statement in this verse above. “I have kept all of these things, what do I still lack?”

Many of us try to be good. We spend our lives doing the things that we feel are good and that make us a good person for an ethical and moral standpoint. But, so often we wonder whether or not that adequate? Is all that really enough? This young man got to the same place as well. He wondered if doing these good and moral things were enough. Jesus then answered him and gave him a task that he was not able to do. He ended up going away sad.

In all truth, God sets us a task that we are not able to do, yet it is the only way that we can accomplish and achieve eternal life. We must be perfect. That is the only way we can earn salivation. Yet none of us are perfect. So, we have no way of earning our own salvation. We must come to the place where we accept Jesus Christ and his perfection on our behalf. Only through surrendering our life to him, will we be able to experience eternal life. The man here in this story went away sad, but that’s because he didn’t allow Christ to do in and through him what he could not do on his own. Are we willing to allow Christ to work in us to do what we can not do?