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Chivonne Holmes-
Someone told me I was negative and faithless. So I sat back and evaluated myself and they was 100 percent correct. How am I supposed to imitate Jesus when negative things come out my mouth. How can I say I’m christ like but have nothing positive to say. So this morning prayer for me is I pray God restores my heart and that I’m able to reconize when being negative and change it into a positive. That I’m able to see the Jesus in a bad situation. That I’m able to trust in him and not myself. That I think What Jesus thinks and not what the wold thinks. God had blessed me in so many ways but I was caught up in my emotions and my human mind that I didn’t even realize it. So Lord I thank you for you many blessing because without you I shore wouldn’t have made it this far. Everyone have a blessed day!!!!!
Mark 10:17-22New King James Version (NKJV)
What does it say?
Jesus is teaching along the way. A rich young man comes and kneels before Him asking Him how he can inherit eternal life.
Jesus tells him no one is good.
Jesus lays out the commandments- and he has kept all
Jesus then tells him a hard thing to hear, He looks into the young man’s heart and sees something that can hinder his walk and asks that the young man give it up.
He leaves sorrowful because he knows he will not do what is asked of him.
What does it mean?
Jesus said, THERE IS NONE GOOD BUT GOD! There is no one that is good. The fleshly man that Jesus was, the human side of Him is not good.
I know this is a hard concept to grasp in this day we are living in
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.
Psalm 14:3 They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
EX: The youth pastor from my home church and my good friend told me he was better than me.
There is no one who has a good heart!
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
Jesus is in the business of probing the heart.
What is the remedy?
You must be born again and get a NEW HEART!
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
What does it mean to you?
Jesus is interested in what is going on in our heart.
Jesus is showing us something in these verses-
Jesus’ way goes deeper than the keeping of the commandments- He wants to get to the issues of the heart.
God’s moral commandments are still in effect- I am pretty sure God still say, “Thou shall not murder”
Yet, God needs to get us beyond the just “doing what it says” and actually get into our heart.
We can actually obey without our heart being in it-
John 3:15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
You can actually serve your brother and do kind things and STILL HATE in your heart.
The LORD is interested in what is in your heart!
1 Thessalonians 2:4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.
1 Timothy 1:5 Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,
He will ask probing questions to reveal those dark places- He is interested in those places that you don’t want to give up.
It is not enough for you to be good in all ***these areas; He wants the one area where there is opportunity for you to fall away from Him and fall into sin.
Being rich was not wrong or bad- HOWEVER, This young man loved his riches- it was his idol.
An idol is an opportunity for you to fall away from the Lord.
Ex: I was newly saved 1 year and was going to be on a fitness program on ESPN with Cory Everson
I FULLY believe the Lord took this from me because it was an area where I had built an idol- my fitness physique
I wanted this so badly. I had given up so such for the Lord already. I was doing everything He asked of me. But this area was an idol. I was not strong enough at that time in the Lord to handle success or money- it would have drawn me away from the Lord
God is asking us to lay our hearts bare before Him and give up ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that we have placed above Him- these are opportunities for you to be drawn away from the Lord.
I want you to notice verse 21 “Jesus beholding him, loved him”
“Beholding him”- Jesus discerned his heart and He STILL loved him
Jesus sees into our hearts, and looks at our dark places and idols with love and says things that we don’t always WANT to hear, but rather says things we NEED to hear.
This idea floating around that Jesus never says anything HARD or difficult for us to hear is a LIE.
He reaches into those dark places, loving us to the point of dying for us-
He speaks life in order that we might obey and receive that LIFE eternal
JESUS SAYS HARD THINGS FOR US TO HEAR!
Revelation 3 14-17 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans[f] write,
‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,[g] I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—
I don’t read this with anger or vengeance, I read this with LOVE. Loving words from a LOVING SAVIOR who gave His life for me. He doesn’t will that any should perish and so He warns me of places where I am going astray
HE reaches into the depths of our heart, past what we think we are doing “right” in order to bring LIFE
It is His GRACE that He tells us those things that need to be repented of!!
Somebody who REALLY loves you and REALLY cares about you will always tell you the truth- no matter how much it hurts or costs
EX: ladies at the gym
“But Jesus, I have kept all these things” we say BUT HE SPEAKS to those hidden things of the heart that we need to change in order to be right with Him
What area of your life is God coming to you and pointing out asking you to surrender to Him?
What personal qualities? desires? interests? relationships?
What have you not surrendered to the LORD? IT IS exactly that place that He is asking of you-
He is constantly driving us to the position of surrender and full reliance on HIM.
EX: I am going to through myself under the bus here- I don’t drink alcohol because God asked me to
never let it touch my lips. It is a small price to pay to never drink alcohol as long as I live if it means
eternity with Jesus. I will eat gravel if He asked it of me.
NOTHING else matters but to know Jesus FULLY:
Phil 3:7-11 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
After He digs deep into your heart–
Jesus says, “Lay down your all, take up your cross and follow Me”
He reiterates this in Luke, but to ALL men this time
Luke 9:23New King James Version (NKJV)
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,[a] and follow Me.
I am not sure if you recognize this but the cross represents an agonizing, bloody death of self
Take up your cross!
Pulpit Commentary Luke 9:23
Even though his great popularity was now on the wane, to the last he was evidently listened to by crowds, if not with enthusiasm, certainly with eager and impatient curiosity. The sermon, of which we have the outline in the next five verses, and the subject-matter of which was, “No cross, no crown,” was preached evidently to the masses. This is plain from the opening words of ver. 23. The sermon was evidently a hard saying, and, no doubt, gave bitter offence to many of the hearers. “If any man will,” that is, wishes to, “come after me, to follow me where I am going” (Jesus was going to his kingdom), “let that man be prepared to give up earthly ease and comfort, and be ready to bear the sufferings which will be sure to fall on him if he struggle after holiness.” This readiness to give up ease, this willingness to bear suffering, will be a matter, they must remember, of everyday experience.
Oswald Chambers said this:
“We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. God has one intended goal for mankind-holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out pity- He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.”
EVERYDAY I must choose to take up my cross and follow
EEVERYDAY I must choose His ways over my ways
EVERYDAY I must lay down my life for my brethren in Christ
EVERYDAY I must humble myself before God and others
EVERYDAY I must forgive so that I am forgiven
What does this mean to you?
Let him deny himself, and take up his cross.–Our common thoughts of “self-denial,” i.e., the denial to ourselves of some pleasure or profit, fall far short of the meaning of the Greek. The man is to deny his whole self, all his natural motives and impulses, so far as they come into conflict with the claims of Christ.
The self-denial here commanded has, accordingly, its highest type and pattern in the act by which the Son of God, in becoming man, “emptied Himself of all that constituted, if we may so speak, the “self” of His divine nature as seen in Phil 2:5-8:
Philippians 2:5-8New King James Version (NKJV)
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Denying self requires us to give up anything that we would want or seek that would hinder our doing the will of God. This does not mean that, if we want something, it is necessarily wrong.
It means we must take our wants and desires down from the throne and place Jesus and His will as the governing power in our lives.
There is room in each life for only one master.
(1) What is a cross for? It was not just a burden to be borne. Far more than that, it was an instrument of death and total sacrifice.
(2) Jesus said take up our cross and follow Him. He bore a cross and we must bear our cross and follow Him. But where was He going with His cross? He had just said He was going to die.
So, “taking up your cross” refers to giving your whole life to God, as Jesus was about to give His life for us. This involves bearing burdens, but it is deeper than that. It is a total dedication of life.
Our whole life is given to His service in anything He says. This will lead us to willingly deny self. Following Him then requires us to live as He lived His life
The next verse then helps us understand Jesus’ point and strengthens the application:
Luke 9:24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
If a person holds his life so dear to himself that he wants to use it to please himself, do his own will, and accomplish his own purposes, rather than denying self and serving God, that person will in the end lose his life eternally.
But anyone who loses his life for Jesus’ sake – gives it in service and sacrifice to God by denying himself, as described above – such a man will save his life by gaining eternal life.
There can be no greater or clearer teaching anywhere of the meaning of being a disciple. This is how our Master lived, so this is how His disciples must live. We must live lives of complete and total submission to the will of God.
1 Peter 2:21-24New King James Version (NKJV)
21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us,[a] leaving us[b] an example, that you should follow His steps:
22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; [c]
23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
Will you be born again today?
Will you give up that which the Lord is asking of you today?
OR will you walk away speechless with sorrow?