We've all heard the story of conversation that Jesus had with the "rich young ruler" and the young man's unfortunate and unhappy ending.
If you haven't before, read it now in the link below, it doesn't take too long:
After reading this passage today, I realized how heart broken that young man must have been. To find out that all his riches, his status, and his good behavior added up to nothing in the reality of what it meant to follow Christ and inherit eternal life.
It wasn't having the riches that didn't allow him to inherit eternal life; having things is not a sin in itself. It was his inability to make Christ more important than his material belongings. We might think that the young man was crazy not to want to give up his wealth, since he'd already been working so hard to please God in other areas of life.
But think about it, maybe it's not "riches" for you. We all have something that we could probably give up to have a closer relationship with Christ, yet we allow that something to be more important than a close relationship with the Lord of Creation!
When we think of it that way, we won't be so quick to judge the poor little, rich young ruler and instead look inward and find the things that we allow to become more interesting, important, or satisfying than Christ.
He is real! He can meet our every need! We just have to let Him, by making Him our EVERYTHING! Imagine the richness we can find in that.
