Follow Me
Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Matthew 19: 21-22
When Jesus issues this ‘follow me’ invitation to the rich young ruler, He attaches a condition: give away all of your possessions. Without context, this directive sounds puzzling, for nowhere else in Scripture are we told that followers of Jesus must give away everything they own.
But if we read the verses preceding our text, we see that Jesus is responding to this young man’s claim that he had kept God’s commandments since his youth. In addition to ‘keeping’ all of the commandments, this wealthy individual wanted to know what else was needed to be saved. Jesus’ directive to sell his possessions was a dose of law the man needed, meant to make him realize that he was not the perfect person he thought he was.
Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler have application to us as well. No, we are not to immediately liquidate all of our assets and give them away. But, our Savior would have us take a hard, honest look at ourselves. If we ever think that we are doing well enough to merit salvation, in fact, if we think we are contributing anything to that cause, then we ought to go back and carefully examine ourselves through the lens of God’s holy Law. Then we will have no choice but to say, “Lord, I have NOT kept your Law since my youth. Thank you for keeping that Law perfectly for me and for suffering hell in my place so that heaven is open to me!”
Lord, Thee I seek, I merit naught;
Yet pity and restore me.
Just God, be not Thy wrath my lot;
Thy Son hath suffered for me.
The Lutheran Hymnal 317:3