Good Thing
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Matthew 19:16-21 (NIV)
16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “’You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,
19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
What Good Thing Must I Do
The rich young man comes to Jesus with a question that sounds right on the surface.
What good thing must I do to get eternal life?
He is not hostile. He is not trying to trap Jesus the way the Pharisees often did. He is genuinely asking. He wants eternal life and he wants to know what action will secure it. What is the requirement. What does he need to do.
The question itself reveals the framework he is working from.
Do. Get. The assumption underneath it is that eternal life is something that can be obtained through the right action. That there is a task to complete, a box to tick, a good thing that if performed correctly will result in the desired outcome. He has come to the right teacher — surely Jesus will give him the definitive answer on what the required good thing is.
This is such a human way of approaching God. We are transactional by nature. We look for the input that produces the output. We want to know what we need to do so we can do it and consider the matter settled.
Jesus is about to show him that the framework itself is the problem.
There Is Only One Who Is Good
Before Jesus answers the question He stops at the word good.
Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.
This is not a deflection. It is a redirection toward something the young man has not yet understood. He used the word good casually — what good thing. But Jesus treats the word with weight. Goodness in its ultimate sense does not belong to human actions. It belongs to God alone.
The implication is significant. You are asking me about doing a good thing — but you are talking to a level of goodness you do not yet fully recognise. The one standing in front of you is not just a teacher with good advice. He is the Son of the only One who is truly good.
If the young man had understood who he was talking to in that moment the rest of the conversation might have gone differently. He came looking for a task. He was standing in front of the answer.
We do the same thing. We come to God looking for the thing to do when He is Himself the thing. The relationship is the point. Not the task list that comes out of it.
Keep the Commandments
Jesus answers the question practically and the young man responds predictably.
Keep the commandments.
Which ones?
Jesus lists them. The relational commandments from the Ten. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.
And the young man says — all these I have kept. What do I still lack?
That last question is the most honest thing he says in the whole conversation. What do I still lack. Something in him knows that keeping the commandments has not produced what he was looking for. He has done the good things. He has followed the rules. He has been externally compliant with the requirements. And there is still a gap. Still something missing. Still an emptiness that the rule keeping has not filled.
What do I still lack is the question of a person who has tried the religious performance route and found it insufficient. Who has ticked every box he knows about and still feels like something important has not been addressed.
That feeling is not a failure. It is an invitation. The lack he is sensing is the space where something other than performance was always meant to live.
Jesus Looked at Him and Loved Him
Mark’s gospel adds a detail that Matthew does not include but that changes how we read what comes next.
Jesus looked at him and loved him.
Before the hard word. Before the instruction that would send the young man away sad. Jesus looked at him with love.
That is worth holding onto as we read what Jesus says next. The instruction to sell everything is not a rejection or a punishment or a test designed to trip him up. It comes from the same love that welcomed him when he ran up and knelt down. Jesus loves him enough to tell him the truth about what is actually standing between him and what he is looking for.
That is what genuine love does. It does not just affirm. It does not just validate the path you are on. Sometimes it says — I see what you cannot see from where you are standing. And what I see is that the thing you are holding is the thing that is holding you.
Go Sell Your Possessions
Jesus gives the young man a specific instruction. Not a general spiritual principle. A concrete personal direction.
Go. Sell your possessions. Give to the poor. You will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.
Four steps. Each one flowing from the last. And each one requiring something the young man had not factored into his original question.
Jesus is not making a universal rule that every follower of Jesus must sell everything they own. This is a personal word to a specific person about the specific thing that has become his god. For someone else the instruction might look completely different. But for this man — in this moment — his possessions were the thing standing between him and the life he was asking about.
Jesus saw it immediately. The young man came asking about eternal life and Jesus looked at him and saw a man who had made his wealth his security, his identity, his actual source of life. The possessions were not just things he owned. They owned him. And Jesus loved him enough to name it.
Then come follow me.
That last part is the whole point. The selling is not the destination. The giving is not what produces the treasure. The follow me is what changes everything. The selling creates the space. The following is the life.
What Do You Still Lack
The young man went away sad because he had great wealth.
He had come with a question about what to do. Jesus had shown him what to release. And he could not do it.
Not because he was a bad person. He had genuinely kept the commandments. He was sincere in his searching. He was the kind of person Jesus looked at and loved. But the wealth was too tightly held. The cost of the follow me was too high when measured against what he would have to let go of to get there.
He went away with the same great wealth and the same empty feeling that had sent him looking in the first place. The gap that he could feel — what do I still lack — remained. Because the one thing he needed to release was the one thing he could not.
This passage does not end with condemnation. It ends with sadness. His and perhaps Jesus too. The invitation was genuine. The love was real. The door was open. And the young man walked away from it because of what it cost to walk through.
The most important things always cost something. The question is whether what we are holding is worth more than what we are being offered.
What Are You Holding
This story is a mirror.
Not necessarily about literal wealth — though for some people it is exactly that. But about whatever we are holding that Jesus would identify as the thing standing between us and the follow me.
For some it is money. For others it is reputation, security, a relationship, a plan for how life is supposed to go, a version of the future we have decided we need. Whatever it is — Jesus sees it. He looks at us and loves us. And sometimes that love speaks directly to the thing we thought we were managing fine.
What do you still lack is still the right question. And the answer is usually not a better rule to keep. It is the thing we have been holding that needs to come loose so our hands are free enough to follow.
Walk On
He looked at you and loved you before He said anything hard.
Whatever He is asking you to release today — it is not punishment. It is the space being made for something better than what you are holding.
Go. Give. Then come follow Him.
The treasure in heaven is worth more than whatever is in your hands right now. 🤍
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