After telling a rich young man he would have to give up all his possessions to inherit eternal life, Jesus told his disciples, “It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God.” (Camels are so stubborn even if you could manage to fit one through the eye of a needle, he wouldn't go!) Astonished at his statement, they asked, “Who then can be saved?”
And Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are
possible” (Mat 19:23-27).
Jesus deliberately exaggerated to make the point that no one can save
themselves. The rich young man thought he could, but departed in disappointment, unwilling to do what Jesus asked. I wonder how many people in our churches today think they can be true believers without giving up their treasures, “gaining the whole world, but losing their souls” (Mat 16:26). But the good news is that He's able to change the heart of a rich man even if he's as stubborn as a camel! The next time you face something impossible, think of stubborn camels sand sewing needles; and remember: nothing is impossible for God.
We talk about giving “everything” to the Lord. But how often do we speak of giving Him “nothing.” Peter said to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you.” If we look under the words, we’ll see that the net result of giving everything is having nothing. That's just what Jesus wanted from them! The Son of God does His best work with nothing. He created the heavens and the earth from nothing.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus demonstrates the “nothing” principle. Early on, his mother came to Him with a request for help—their host has run out of wine; they have nothing. Having nothing to work with, Jesus makes mature wine. There are many examples of this “nothingness”: the woman at the well has nothing, symbolically, but empty water pots; Jesus feeds 5,000 who have no food—nothing; Jesus gives sight to a man who was born blind, who could see nothing; and what about the rich young man who comes to Jesus and is told, “go away and come back when you have nothing.”
Even in writing this post, the Lord has shown me how much of my esteem is related to "doing" things . “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal. 6:3). Yikes! Jesus repeatedly said, “I do nothing on my own initiative” (John 5:19; 5:30; 8:28). I think I'm getting it: we think God needs "something" from us to work with. But God wants “nothing” from us.
Have you ever felt that you weren’t giving enough to the Lord? The Old Covenant required the Jews to give a tithe—ten percent. But the New Covenant requires 100%. Though I am not speaking of money, how you spend your money is a good indication of where your heart is: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). I am speaking of your life: Jesus wants it all (Rom. 12:1: 1 Cor. 6:20).
John’s gospel account illustrates this principle (Jn. 6). At the end of a day when people were tired and hungry, the disciples wanted to send them away to the villages to buy their own food. But Jesus insisted that they feed the people (5,000 men, plus unnumbered women and children). When Jesus asked Phillip where they could buy enough bread for all the people to eat, Phillip began to hyper-ventilate (John says Jesus was testing him!). But Peter came to Phillip's rescue by finding a young boy whose mother had prepared him a lunch of 5 little loaves of bread and 2 fishes. I wonder how reassuring that was to Phillip!?
Of course you know how the story ends: not only was everyone fed but there were 12 baskets of left-over’s. (Wouldn't it have been fitting to give the left-over's to Phillip?) By turning the boy's meager lunch into abundance, Jesus was teaching Phillip (and us) this lesson: He doesn’t need a lot from us; but He requires all we have.
