#13 Question: So, do you make lists?

When I go to the grocery store, I take a list, because I can never remember everything I need. When I have gathered everything on the list, I mentally ask, “What else do I need?”

Some people want to know ‘what else’ about going to heaven. A man in the Bible asks Jesus that kind of question after first asking about doing one more good deed, Matthew 19:16:

“And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

This may seem to be a good question. The man was ready to do a good deed and wanted to go to heaven. Jesus told him to keep the commandments. That meant keeping Moses Law, the law God gave to the Israelites before Christianity began.

The young man countered, “Which ones?” Then Jesus cited six individual commandments from Moses Law. The man was ready with his reply, Matthew 19:20:

“The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?”

This is like me at the grocery store. What else did he need to do? Because Jesus knew the young man’s heart, He explained to him the two things he needed to do: 1. Sell what he had and give it to the poor, and 2. Come follow Him.

This conversation sounds like the man was a list maker and had been checking things off his to do list to go to heaven. He wanted to be sure there was not something else that he needed to do. But he was mistaken in his thinking. The Bible teaches that salvation is not earned. You cannot perform a series of tasks and then be rewarded heaven. In other words, salvation cannot be obtained by doing a list of works, Ephesians 2:7-9:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This means that although we are created for good works and they are important, we are saved by the grace of God. That means we can never do enough good deeds or works to merit salvation. We must depend on God’s grace rather than our accomplishments.

The young man who asked Jesus this important question isn’t depending on God. Instead, he seems to be totally depending on his good deeds or works. When Jesus told him to sell everything and give it to the poor, he was sorrowful, because he loved his things more than he loved God, Matthew 19:22:

“When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

In order to follow Jesus, he would have to change the emphasis of his life from loving self, his deeds, and his possessions to loving God more. If he did what Jesus commanded and followed Him, he would be depending on the grace of God for salvation.

This answer also fits what Jesus told a scribe about the greatest commandment, Mark 12:30:

“… you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

If the young man loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, then he would not mind sharing what he had with the poor.

What do we learn from these incidents in the life of Jesus?

  1. Doing good deeds alone will not provide us salvation.
  2. Salvation is only provided by the grace of God.
  3. Putting God first in our life is necessary.

The answer to the question posed in the title is that we all make lists. But we cannot be list makers and accomplish a list of things to go to heaven. Instead, salvation will always depend on the grace of God.

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