“Where do I still fall short?”
I find it very difficult to explain to people the idea that I expressed in yesterday’s devotional, that the recipe for Eternal Life as proclaimed to us by the mouth of Yeshua Himself is: to keep the Commandments and follow Him (Matthew 19:16-21). Whereas people may at a later time understand, their mind is usually stuck behind a very strong and tall barrage of ‘Law-phobia’.
Since the days of Luther’s Reformation, people have been accustomed to the ‘free-be’ version of the faith. As soon as they hear the slightest mention of ‘Mosaic law’, they suddenly become expert watchdogs of the faith to make sure that you are not teaching the ‘false doctrine’ of a Redemption that would cost them something. Don’t get me wrong here, I do believe that my Redemption cost me nothing, but as far as saying that Redemption is free I would suggest first asking Yeshua about it. The facts are that if it is free, it is because someone else paid the tab, so in essence it is not free. Justice had to be paid for God to be a ‘just’ God. So as the adage says, ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’.
The other question I want to ask is, ‘And what if it did cost something; don’t you think that the benefits far outweigh anything you can invest for the Kingdom? I know that this is not theologically correct, but I feel that the issue of free redemption is only appreciated for that very reason: because it is free, an attitude which seems to denote of a spirit of calculated self-preservation and selfishness. Didn’t Yeshua teach the parable of the man whom when he found the Kingdom, was happy to invest all that he had to obtain it (Matthew 13:44)’? It seems that this man fell onto the ‘pro version’. The version that requires to pay, but the one which then answers the question of our rich young ruler in Matthew 19, ‘where do I still fall short?’
As we come to the Kingdom through the ‘free version’ program, we are introduced to the pay ‘pro-version’ option which brings us deeper into the Kingdom and closer to the Master, and whereas the entrance is free, the measure of our rewards is estimated by our personal investment, the bread we cast upon the waters and the use of our talents (Ecclesiastes 11:1; Matthew 25:14-30). We are certainly free to remain in the free-version, but wouldn’t we want to get closer to him who gave everything so we could enter the kingdom? Are we just in it for the ‘free stuff’?
We are supposed to emulate Him and He did not balk at the cost. Do we?