As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God.” -Mark 10:17-18 (msg)

Good and Truth are not opinions. Jesus seems very clear in this verse that the man who asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to  get eternal life?”, either knew Jesus was God With Us, or the man was too quick in dolling out the adjective Good. 

We toss the word ‘good’ around much too liberally. Jesus didn’t take the use of Good lightly, even in receiving a compliment for himself; it was more important to Jesus that the man understand that Good was only to be used in association with God, and if it wasn’t in association with God, it, whatever it may be, was not Good. Can we receive that as Truth? Do we want to know the Good plans that our very Good God has planned for us? Than we must do what is Good… and the only way we can accomplish Good is if we have His Spirit, a Good Spirit. Always pointing us Home, always pointing us to the sweetness of surrendering to a Good Father who promises to care for us… And then we follow – we let go of this world, we quit calling this world Good and we follow Who is truly Good.

“Jesus looked him hard in the eye – and loved him! He said, ‘There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.” John 10:21 (msg)

Jesus has come to set our burdened hearts free. There is only One Good thing we need to cling to and He is ours and He can never be taken from us. Luke 10:42 There is only one thing worth being concerned about, Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken from her.

Let us not make this legalistically about monetary wealth, this is about having no other God (counting nothing else as valuable, worthy of clinging to) than the one God that is truly Good. 

Jesus has come to set our burdened hearts free!! Amen.