And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
(Matthew 19:16-22 ESV)
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." One of Jesus' memorable statements joining our approach to stuff with the most important things: relationships. He wants us to dig deeper. This man thought he had done all required, including the foremost commandment of our relationships: honoring his parents, but He fell short. Jesus had said nothing about the first four commandments having to do with our relationship with God, from which these last six must flow. So, outwardly, this man's display was good; he had a lot of brownie points, but inwardly things were not right with God: the things of this world were more important than God. Notice as well that Jesus put them out of order: honoring one's parents is far down the list rather than first; the top of the list is the obviously easy ones: you could get killed for doing them. This also says something about the things he did do, including honoring his parents. It was for show, not from the heart. His horizontal relationships were conducted in such as way that he could "get ahead." He was trying to do the same thing with God: do what he had to to get what he wanted. I believe we call that "manipulation". Do I do the same things?
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