Some of the saddest verses in the Bible are Mark 10:21-22…

²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

 ²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

In this passage, Jesus presents this young man with the opportunity of a lifetime; the chance to be personally mentored by the Teacher the world has known. What I would give to sit at the feet of the Master! I only imagine what it would have been like to walk with Him and be taught by Him—God in the flesh. Throughout scripture, we see that though thousands of people followed Jesus, He only directly asked a select few be a part of this personal apprenticeship. What would you have done if you were presented such an opportunity? My initial emotional response would have been an enthusiastic “Yes!”

The reality of matter is that many of us have heard the call to follow Jesus, to be trained and developed into a great man or woman of God. And many of us have responded enthusiastically until it came time to make the sacrifices necessary to follow the call. It’s kind of like boarding an airplane. Your baggage must be a certain weight in order to get on the plane. It’s ok to have some baggage, but too much baggage will stop you from boarding.

We all enter our journey of obedience to Christ with a little baggage. Some of our baggage is good. Our baggage represents our life experiences. Before we heard the call, some of us found ourselves in positive leadership positions. Others of us made a lot of money, and the list goes on. God does not want to crush every life experience we had before we heard His call. He actually wants to take some of those experiences and use them for His kingdom. But we all have some negative baggage as well. Our negative baggage could include offenses that have never been healed or wrong attitudes about life and God that need to be corrected. If we don’t allow God to take this hindering baggage from our lives, we will never enter fully into the plan He has for us.

Most of us want to get rid of our negative baggage. But sometimes we don’t like the process God chooses to take us through to get rid of those harmful things. In Mark 10:21-22, Jesus saw a young man with great potential, but too much baggage. Jesus didn’t have a problem with the man having wealth, but he knew that the only way the man could deal with the deeper issues in his life was to lay the wealth down. But instead of trusting Jesus the man chose to weep about what he was giving up instead of what rejoice about where he is going.

From time to time, we will all be tempted with sadness over what we’ve been asked to lay down for the Kingdom of God, but I would encourage you to place your focus on where you are going, not on what you are giving up. When I think about some sacrifices my wife and I have made throughout the years to obey God’s call, it would be easy for me to daydream about the good old days. But I choose to focus on where we are going. Every time I focus on where we are going, I am filled with awe and wonder! This past year in Student Ministries and Summer Internships we have seen demons cast out, the lost saved, and physical bodies healed. This past semester our student body was directly involved in almost 2,000 salvations! I’m not looking back! My eyes are on the prize. My answer to Jesus is “Yes!” Yes to the call, yes to the sacrifices, and yes to not looking back!