The throne room

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 Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark tells a story of a rich man, who asks Jesus "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 

Jesus's response may be confusing to some, as He says "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." He then goes on to tell the man that he knows the commandments, and to keep them. When the man says he does, Jesus tells him that there is one thing stopping him from getting eternal life, and says "go, sell all that you have and give to the poor". 

While this is a valuable lesson on greed and treasure in Heaven instead of treasure in the world, that's not what I want to talk about. 

The man's issue wasn't that he was rich. The man's issue was that he valued his money and wealth more than he valued Jesus and the gospel. 

The human heart is a throne room of sorts. Your heart is filled with all sorts of things, some good and some bad, but whatever sits on the throne is what controls your life. It controls what you value, the decisions you make, who you are. 

Money sat on the throne in the rich man's heart. Jesus should always be on ours. 

Now lets dig into Jesus's response. He said two things (without saying them), which were "do you recognize me as God?" and "you can't earn your way into Heaven". The latter of which you can find evidence for in about every chapter in the New Testament (think about the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard). 

Sometimes we think we need to do certain things in order to get into Heaven. We think that if we just do this one extra thing, or become this one extra thing, that we'll finally be good enough for God's grace. But the thing is, we will never, ever be "good enough". If we were going to be good enough to earn God's grace, we would have to be literally perfect, which just doesn't happen. 

God gives us His grace, forgiveness, and love as a gift. All we have to do is accept it. How can we ever repay a generosity like this? We can't, but dedicating our lives is the best we can do to try. 

Realizing what a gift God has given us, leads us to WANT to give Him the throne. He deserves it, Whatever else is on that throne, is no competition. And you might have to lose something to truly follow God- the disciples surely did. But nothing else will ever be as good as eternal life in God. 

So what is sitting on the throne of your heart? Maybe its money, like the man in the parable. But more often its pride, ourselves, maybe our phones or our grades or achievements. But whatever it is, is no competition for Jesus. So give Him His rightful place on the throne.

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