Luke 18:24-25 NIV“Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, 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.” https://bible.com/bible/111/luk.18.24-25.NIV
Jesus looked at the rich man who was speaking with Him about entering heaven and told him it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a sowing needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. This was a good man as he had obeyed the law for many years. He was not going to heaven, the goal of his obedience. What choice did the rich man have? He came to Jesus to hear from Him what was necessary for entering heaven. The answer the rich man received was not what he wanted to hear, and so he rejected Jesus. What is the eternal result of such a choice? Hell, not heaven. We all do this. We want our own religion, and we want God to conform to it, but He doesn’t, and He won’t. When He judges us, He will condemn all those who refuse to conform to His commands. The rich man wanted to believe that his understanding of what pleased God was more accurate than God Himself telling him what pleased God. The Bible is God telling us what pleases Him, yet we ignore and reject it, comforting ourselves with the notion that we are good people, doing the right things and that God will reward us. The epitome of our arrogance is our insistence on our own way to heaven, which conflicts with the clear way revealed by God in Jesus, the only way to heaven, according to Scripture. This is our dilemma. Believe ourselves or believe the Bible. Believe the majority or believe the few who believe the Bible. We are gambling with our eternal souls. God’s way leads to everlasting life in love, peace, and joy with all those who have also loved Him and obeyed His commands. Our ways lead to eternal suffering, torment, and pain forever. God is love and has revealed His love by instructing us on how to live forever with Him in the Scriptures, then making that possible through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Are we the rich man believing we know best what pleases God while we ignore His command to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, proven by our complete allegiance to Him above everything and every person on earth? Or have we abandoned the things of this world to live forever in the next world, proven by our total commitment to working toward God’s kingdom coming to earth as it is in heaven?
