Walking With Christ

(Part 8 of 9)

Mark 10:21  And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing:  go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”(ESV)

The man came running.  He knelt before Jesus.  He asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.

From the outside, he looked serious.  He’d kept the commandments from his youth.  Jesus could’ve praised his discipline and sent him away encouraged.

Instead, He touched the one place the man didn’t want touched.  “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor… and come, follow me.”

The man went away sorrowful.  Jesus knew where the lesson would hurt.

He also loved him.

Those two things weren’t opposites.  Sometimes love asks the question we don’t want asked.  Sometimes it exposes the thing we’ve protected.  Sometimes the lesson becomes uncomfortable because comfort is exactly what’s been keeping us from seeing the problem.

Jesus didn’t always make His teaching easy to receive.  He challenged assumptions.  He confronted hypocrisy.  He exposed misplaced priorities.  He sometimes allowed people to walk away unhappy rather than soften the truth enough to make them comfortable.

The goal of teaching isn’t always to make the listener feel successful.  Sometimes the goal is to reveal what still needs to change.

A lesson that hurts isn’t automatically a cruel lesson.  Sometimes it hurts because it reached the place that needed attention.

Jesus looked at the man and loved him.  Then He told him the truth.

How Jesus taught:  He challenged people where they were weakest.