What was important to Jesus?

When the rich young man rocked up to Jesus and asked him "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered with a question about goodness, proclaiming that "no-one is good except God alone", and then told the man to follow the commandments.

But that still wasn't enough for Jesus.

Jesus then asks him to give up his life. The rich young man couldn't do it.

What do I learn from this? Jesus tells the man he is not good because he is not God. He then asks the man to get up and follow him. The man does not want to do this.

We are not good. We are not God. Jesus accepts this, and is tolerant of this through his grace over us. He simply asks us to follow him, through the laying down of our lives. He doesn't care who we are, what we have done, where we have come from, he just asks for some obedience and then he will sort out the rest.

Too long have we thought, believed and preached that Christians need to be good to follow Jesus. Christians can be whatever they want to be, and then he will transform them into his likeness so they actually are truly good.

Only in him, through him and filled by him can we be good, can we meet God.