I’m rather torn.  Most of the time I get so excited about the fact that I will spend forever attempting to mine the riches of who this great God of mine is.  But there’s that little bit of the time when I just get flummoxed at how very little of Him I must know now for that to be true.

His ways aren’t like mine.  His thoughts are so infinitely far above mine. (Isaiah 55:8) I find myself daunted by the truths I find in His Word, unable to reconcile them to what my life and my culture and my church and my logic tell me to be reality.

Here’s my “for instance”: The rich young ruler of the Gospels.  He was zealous and obedient and ‘religious’ and appeared to be blessed –in biblical culture, if you were wealthy, it meant that you were blessed of the Lord.  He looked and acted like he was the perfect salvation candidate.  Any of our churches today would have let him in!  And put him forward as a model member at that!  But that isn’t at all what Jesus did.  He spoke to him rather harshly.  He seemed to completely overlook all the ‘good’ in him and denied him access to the Kingdom because of one little area that he didn’t seem to have handed over.  Looks like he gave everything else quite freely.  He just left that one room locked.  And that was all it took for Christ to say no. (Matthew 19)

This man was denied salvation.  I’m pretty sure that in today’s evangelism we would say that No One is denied that.  With a simple prayer, some ‘faith-filled’ words and thoughts, a few verses and salvation can be yours.  Christ seems to tell the young man that there is a little more that he requires of him.  He wants it all. And He doesn’t seem willing to take less.

There is so much I have to learn.  I don’t get this.  Is He still telling people no?  I know very few indeed who don’t keep at least a few rooms locked.  Is He telling anyone no today — and are they just not hearing Him say it?

Of all that I don’t know, here’s what I do:  Jesus told the young man no because He knew that this one throne would never really be His.  No matter what He or anyone else saw in the man’s actions, God knew about the condition of his heart, and it didn’t belong to Him.

For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.                                2 Peter 2:19

For all the niceties, for all the obedience, subservience, and zeal, this man was slave to someone else and that just won’t do.

Then you have a man like Gideon of Judges.  He didn’t look the part.  He was fearful and questioning, he was a polygamist and idolater.  But this man God accepted.  This was the kind of man that God could use.  What’s the difference?  At the end of the day the rightful King was enthroned.  (Judges 6-8)

Let us not deceive ourselves.  Today I would venture to guess that few of us would see any need to seek the Savior and make sure that all our great efforts were enough.  We would feel ever so confident that they are.  That young man has more than a few things on us.  He did all the ‘right’ things just like us.  He looked the part just like us.  He had zeal and enthusiasm just like us.  He knew the Law and lived daily by it just like us.  He even recognized the Savior and admitted as much just like us.  And in humility he sought that Savior to see if there wasn’t something even more that he could do.  He had humility in all of his religious pomp.

So how is it that I differ?  If everything on the outside looks the same, the differences must be somewhere else and not necessarily outward at all.  We know this.  Samuel made it clear to us in the choosing of David as Israel’s next king.  We know God looks at the heart.  But have we realized that He doesn’t need to be the only one doing that?

It is possible to look the part and not own it.  It is possible that our ever-deceiving hearts have pulled one over on us.  It is possible that there are locked doors where God says ‘No I won’t allow that.”  It is possible that, despite the free-will we cling to and applaud, we live enslaved to hidden masters.  Satan is the ultimate deceiver.  And a darn good mascarade.  That’s a nasty combo for deception.  Top that with hearts willing and eager to deceive their owners and we had better be vigilant.

Try me, search me, examine me, O God.  Find out if there is any master I serve but you.  Depose those whom I have allowed to contend with you. Let me not be deceived, but let me follow hard after my one and only rightful King.  (Psalm 139:23-24) May good works and ‘right’ living never be my aim or my delight.  May my audience always be One. May I never overlook the Gideon in praise of the young ruler.  May I serve one master Jesus and no other.