HEART'S IN CHAINS!

Jesus said, "...it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it they were greatly astonished saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 
 I've been thinking about the things that block us from entering into a deep relationship with God. Those things that are logs in our own eyes, that we can't see, yet hang as chains around our necks keeping us from all we could ever want or hope to be. 


In the above passage Jesus tells a young rich man who was doing everything right according to the commandments to sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him. His disciples were astonished at such a statement. The idea that a man who was doing all the right things and not be saved by those works, was incomprehensible to them. But God, who knows the heart of a man, measures by a different standard.


I have had much and lost everything, including the death of my first born and come face to face with my own mortality when I discovered I had cancer. I went from a big house, 6 figure income and 17 years worth of possessions to nothing... it was all stripped away from me. God forbid that should happen to any of you. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but God was far more concerned about my heart and soul than He was with me gaining the whole world and what I thought I needed and was best for me. Isn't that a fathers love for his child? But why did those things not come to me when I did everything to make them? Simply this, they blocked me! They controlled my heart and my heart belongs to Him. They were roadblocks to my relationship with Him being intact and vibrant.

I think it's easier to have had it all and then lost it, than to have it all and find your worth in what you've attained and imagine yourself something for it. I see it happen all the time. I have watched those who gained it say they trust God, but for them, to loose it all would be far more devastating than loosing their relationship with God, though they claim it wouldn't. Just like the young man in the story above, they would walk away in despair because they worked so hard.

For me, the most gripping part of the story Jesus tells is God doesn't go running after the young man. The reason is the rich sound rulers' heart never belonged to God. He thought by doing it all right his salvation was sealed. He couldn't comprehend that there was more to this life than things and that there's more to God than rote and religion. 

God's ways are not ours. When we lean on our own strength, our own wisdom, our own understanding and abilities we somehow get it in our heads that they will deliver us. But with God, not only our salvation attained, but our very purpose and meaning revealed. 
There is a vast difference between doing it our way and His.

The question we must ask ourselves is, "Am I willing to loose it all to gain Him?" The world calls it foolishness. God says, it's life!



What's blocking you today? What's keeping your heart bound up and chained? What if you were required to lose it all in order to have all of Him... would you?


© 2012 Steven Bliss

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