Right Question - Wrong Response Series

When you read about Jesus you see him connecting with all kinds of people. Some of them have broken and shattered lives. Some of them are pretty well off. The man the gospels call “The Rich Young Ruler, asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life.” He got an answer he didn’t expect and he couldn’t handle. It is an answer that many struggle with today.

Luke 18:18-27 (NCV)

A Rich Man’s Question

18 A certain leader asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to have life forever?”

19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? Only God is good. 20 You know the commands: ‘You must not be guilty of adultery. You must not murder anyone. You must not steal. You must not tell lies about your neighbor. Honor your father and mother.’ ” b

21 But the leader said, “I have obeyed all these commands since I was a boy.”

22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” 23 But when the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was very rich.

24 Jesus looked at him and said, “It is very hard for rich people to enter the kingdom of God. 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Who Can Be Saved?

26 When the people heard this, they asked, “Then who can be saved?”

27 Jesus answered, “God can do things that are not possible for people to do.”

Planning for the Future

When you make a plan for the future it critical to define the goals. Everyone sets goals…

We do it all the time and there are lots of goals in every part of our lives. From our youth up we set and attempt to achieve goals with varying degrees of success: Making the football team or the cheerleading squad; applying to colleges and universities, saving for that car, starting a family, purchasing a house, preparing for retirement, being secure and safe.

There are as many goals as there are potential destinations and possible routes to get there.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

When Andrew Carnegie died, they discovered a sheet of paper upon which he had written one of the major goals of his life: to spend the first half of his life accumulating money and to spend the last half of his life giving it all away. And he did!

Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them. We all need lots of powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much. When you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. When you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.

When you look at goal setting this way there is only one real goal that matters. I call it the ultimate goal. It is the same for every person. It is a desire in us that is built into the fabric of our very being.

The Ultimate Goal in Life is “LIFE” – FOREVER!

This wealthy, youthful, leader asked the right question. He asked how to obtain eternal life “LIFE” – FOREVER! Real life – joyful, satisfied, contented, and abundant. No regrets living!

His desire for life is what everyone of us really wants in life. It isn’t money. It isn’t stuff. It isn’t food. It’s that deep sense of peace and contentment we call joy.

Listen – figuring out the goal is the easy part!

This rich young ruler and even you and I can figure out the goal. But achieving the goal is another matter. We all really have the same goal but we fail in the achievement of the goal.

This man – was doomed to fail because… He counted on his own goodness

Luke 18:18-21 (NCV)