Walking the same Road that Jesus Walks

Do you remember the story of the rich young ruler? That's what the teachers and preachers called it when I was a boy. A young Jewish man comes to Jesus. In doing so, he calls out to Jesus: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27; Luke 181:18-27

Jesus looks at him and answers: "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." There is a lifetime of lessons in this one response and Jesus hasn't even gotten to his original question. When we think of someone being good, the idea is one of consistency of doing what is right, of treating people and animals with kindness and respect. We know that kind of good people. You might even be one of those people.

But Jesus is speaking of something more. Of righteousness. That is right before God. None of us can come before God on an equal plain with Him. He is God. He cannot lie. He cannot do what is not right. All of us have sinned and fallen short of that mark. Romans 3:23.

You might say, "Well, I'm just as good as you are, maybe better." Granted, but that is the wrong standard. Jesus challenges us to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48

So Jesus goes back to the man's question. You know the commandments. Do these and you will live. The man replied that he had kept these commands since he was a boy.

Jesus then looks at the man and loves him. He loves his heart. He loves his desire to do what is right. He loves him as one of God's creation and he cut like a razor to the quick in his response: "One thing you lack. go and sell your possessions and give them to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven, THEN come follow me." "Walk the same road that I walk" the Amplified Bible says.

The man's face fell and he went away sad, the Bible says, for he had many possessions. The disciples who are walking with Jesus have left everything to be with him, but even they are blown away by the steep requirement Jesus puts on the man.

It is hard for the rich to be saved, Jesus says. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

"Who then can be saved?" His disciples ask.

"With men it is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God," Jesus replies. All things are possible with God.

If I want to walk the same road that Jesus walks (to be His follower/disciple/a Christian) then I must look to God. My hope is locked up in Him. All things are possible with God. I must first ask the right question, as the rich young man did. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" It's got to matter to me. More than anything.

Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness..." Again He says in Matthew 7:13, 14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." His kingdom has to matter most of all. If it does, nothing else will stand in the way of my "walking the same road that He walks." I become what I focus on. If Jesus is my Lord, and I have submitted my life to Him, He will become my constant thought. How I can please Him?How I can obey and honor Him? How I can demonstrate my love for Him?

His disciples say, How is this possible? Who then can be saved? Jesus says to them and to all who would come after Him: All things are possible with God. and He offers again: Get rid of anything that hinders you and come follow me. Walk the same road that I walk.