Heart Tracks - Mansions

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." "If you could have heaven and all you could ever want, and Jesus wasn't there, could you be happy?....How many of us are truly in love with Jesus?" Francis Chan

John Burton has said that "rich, young rulers are filling our pews," and "we want our 'mansions' to all be here." Those statements pierce. The first of course refers to the young man who came to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus spoke of several behavior oriented things, to which the young man replied that he'd done them all. Jesus then pressed him deeper than the man had ever expected. He told him to sell everything he had, and to come and follow Him. This broke the young man's heart, and he walked away from the One he believed he wanted. He loved his riches more than he loved Jesus. How like him might we be? Are we among the "rich young rulers" that Burton speaks of? How tightly do we grasp those things we believe we need in order to have that abundant life Christ promised? How much of our joy and happiness is connected to what we have, or long to have th right now? How many of us are living in the mindset that we could be joyful and content "if only" we had this situation, house, job, relationship, ministry....mansion? How many of us are living in a "Jesus and..." mentality? We want Jesus and all of the blessings He can give us. Wanting Him alone is not a heart attitude we're really desiring to live in. We want Him to build our mansions in the here and now. We want to embrace Him with one arm while hugging all of our "stuff" to ourselves with the other.

Chan's question of being happy in heaven if we had all of its promise but without the presence of Christ, is chilling. Someone told me in response to this question that heaven wouldn't be heaven without Him, and they were correct. Yet many of those who profess faith in Him are living with little if any of His Presence and yet seem quite happy and content with that. Why would they feel any differently if He were not present throughout eternity?

So we return to Chan's final question: How many of us are truly in love with Jesus? Here in the west, there are churches with overflow crowds being led by "preachers" who promise them a life of abundance, happiness, security, and unending blessings. How many would be there if the message were simply "Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Me?" That is what Christ invites us to, and He calls us to love Him with all of our being as we do so. Rich young rulers, or rulers of any age group will never do that. They will attend services, give money, but they will never give Him all of themselves. They cannot carry His cross because they can't leave off looking for their mansions. They cannot share in His sufferings because suffering for Him has no place in their faith. To what degree are you and I among them? How much do we truly love Jesus?

Blessings,
Pastor O