October 12: Mark 10:17-22
 
Key Verse: Mark 10:21
Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’
 
Devotion:
How many things do you collect? I know there are a lot of people out there who collect things like stamps, coins and the like, but there are also people who collect other strange things... When we see people collecting strange things, we may think of them as eccentric or just plain weird! Maybe Jesus saw this man as just plain weird!
 
Jesus tried to impress the value of a relationship with God over and above everything else in life upon the disciples; something they did not always see and something this man did not see. When we go overboard with collecting something, be it stamps, cars or whatever else, we lose focus on God and tend to concentrate too much on our collections instead. When people get to do this with money, we either look at them as entrepreneurs or greedy – we don't seem to have much of a middle ground when it comes to money!
 
When this man asked Jesus what he needed to do to get to heaven, Jesus tried to allow him to see what he was doing with his life. This man had been too focused on making sure he gained money in everything he did, he lost focus on the people around him and on the needs of those people.
 
What Jesus wanted him to do was to step back from this unhealthy focus on money and to refocus on God. This mean giving up this love for money he had and to start to focus on God's people instead. We often lose the ability to see the needs of others when we focus too much on ourselves or our own wants...
 
Points to Ponder:
Are you focusing too much on something in your life?
 
Will you stop and look at the needs of those around you today?