June 27, 2022
The Almost Daily will be on Summer Vacation until August 8th. But fear not! You will receive a devotional each Monday through Friday from the excellent Mockingbird Devotional entitled Daily Grace. Enjoy! - Paul Walker
Jesus, looking at [the rich man], 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.” When [the rich man] heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. (Mark 10:21-22)
There is an ever-growing list of demands on our lives that constantly holds us back from feeling any sort of “enoughness.” Just when we think we are doing something right, the law always arrives in its shining armor to tell us that there is one more thing to do in order to be “righteous”—to feel like we’ve done enough. A spouse did the laundry, but did they wash the dishes or take out the trash? An old friend shows up to church for the first time but is bombarded with ways to serve. Our attempts to show support and solidarity for any cause are met with a list of additional things we must do; otherwise, we are not doing enough.
In the Gospels, the rich man (or rich young ruler) asks Jesus what a person must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds by giving him a list of things to do. The ruler, probably joyfully, lets Jesus know that he has done everything on that list. But then Jesus gives him one more thing to accomplish. Jesus gives him an impossibility. The man walks away “grieving.”
However, Jesus does not stop there. A couple verses later, he gives us the good news: what is impossible to us is possible to God (v. 27). We see this when we continue to read through the Gospels and encounter the death and resurrection of Jesus. We might be discouraged by our own inabilities to do good and become righteous, but we do not have to walk away sad and defeated. Our God does not arrive donning expensive shining armor with a to-do list in hand. Instead, we have a suffering servant who arrives in ordinary clothes on a donkey. It is that Jesus who heads towards the cross and makes us righteous through his death and resurrection. We are able to continue participating in whatever good work is laid before us, because we rest, not in our own, but in Jesus’ finished work.
[Bryant Trinh, Daily Grace - Mockingbird Devotional Vol. 2]
