The Invitation

Luke 18 And a ruler asked Him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.

I have always wondered if there was a long pause here while an unasked question hung between these two men. Are you referring to Me as God?

You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal. Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother. And he said, All these I have kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this He said to him, One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

The fact that he was very sad kind of answered the unasked question, maybe.

There are many times in the life and ministry of Jesus where people just walked away and each person seemed to have a particular breaking point.

Take Judas for example who became indignant over the "waste" of the very expensive spikenard used to anoint Jesus before His burial when that money "should" have been placed in the disciples' money bag which Judas so conveniently carried.

Or remember the story of Peter who said that even if the whole world should leave Jesus that he never would; he vowed that he would die for Jesus before he would abandon Him. But when it came down to keeping that promise maybe Peter had some second thoughts about Jesus' ability to save His own skin and if He couldn't do that then could He or would He save Peter?

For the young ruler the line drawn in the sand was his wealth; his treasure that he would not be parted from.

I always wondered what happened to the rich young ruler. But we know what happened to Judas and Peter. They made very different choices later. One took his own life and "went to his own place" and the other was one of the greatest preacher, teacher and evangelists of the New Testament.

The truth of it is that we all at some point walk away; we are all unfaithful. The question is, will we return?

John 16 After this (teaching) many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well?

And Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

One of the greatest verses in Scripture.

Lord, to whom shall we go?

It is risky to follow Jesus. Sometimes it seems that He asks too much. Our wealth. Our professions. Our lives. But in the end, like Peter, (and even if we have walked away) we have to ask ourselves, To whom shall we go?

There have been many times, in various ways, where there is an area of my life that the Lord desires change and I resist that. I draw my own line in the sand and say in essence, Lord that is as far as You can come. And His answer is usually, That is your choice but this is as far as we will go. And then I have to ask myself, Is this all I want of Him?

And then He waits for my return because He knows at the end of the day that what I want most is all that He has for me and I know that I will never see that until He has all of me.

Lord Jesus thank You for asking the hard questions. The ones that make us think. The ones that make us choose. The ones that open our eyes to truth about who You are and who we are. Thank You for Your persistence and patience with Me. With all Your friends. Help me to remember the story of Peter and to realize that if I choose to walk away from You....to whom shall I go?