GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:29
Possessionlessness
A speaker stood before a class and said, “On the paper before you, make a list of everything you own.” For the next few minutes, the people thought and wrote. Some lists grew as the participants thought about all they had acquired—houses, automobiles, land, and so on. There were lists of property, children, and positions. Then the speaker invited a few to volunteer to read their lists. At the end of the exercise, the speaker said, “Now tear the lists into small pieces, because you own nothing. God owns everything.”
The disciples watched as a wealthy, young, and influential man approached Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. He had kept the ethical law, but still sensed that something was missing—eternal life. Then Jesus told him, “If you’re truly serious, sell all your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow me.” (My rather poetic interpretation.) Stunned by this demand, the young man turned back to his possessions. Witnessing the exchange, Peter said to Jesus, “We’ve left everything to follow you.” Whereupon “Jesus said, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or fields because of me and because of the gospel …’” (Mark 10:29) Jesus was not unaware of the decision a disciple must make, for he had made the same decision.
After accepting a call to serve a church in 1968, my wife, Alice, and I needed to sell our first home. She was fully committed to the move. Yet I held her close as the salesman hammered the “for sale” signpost into the yard. She flinched at each strike of the hammer as it drove the stake into the ground. We were leaving behind all that was familiar and stepping into a new venture.
A caution is worth noting here: giving up every possession does not guarantee eternal life. Possessionlessness is not the same as salvation. Jesus told the young man, “Follow me.” The essence, then, is discipleship—nothing can stand between Jesus and the one who follows him. The lasting insight is that God owns everything.
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