The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has introduced a new manual titled Come Follow Me to be used church wide. This year our focus will be on the New Testament. The first week we focused on this lesson centered around the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19:
16 ¶ And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?As I studied I was flooded with inspiration from the spirit. I had to record my impressions. I longed to shared and discuss what I had received as well. Fortunately, I had a couple conversations before Sunday finally came for which I was immensely grateful. But I still feel this longing to share my testimony of what I learned here. The idea came to finally make my first post on this blog. Even if it sounds like I am shouting into the endless abyss. I have the chance to bear witness of God to anyone who would stop for a moment and read this.
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
20 The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
The first overwhelming impression which will underscore everything else that came after it is:
"Our discipleship is progressive"
When I read the words this time Jesus is answering his question simply at first "Keep the Commandments" but the Rich Young Man replies with "Which?" like he is eager to search deeper into the answer. Even when Jesus spells it out for him, I can almost picture him shaking his head as if to say "There must be more" and then Jesus gives him the next level up, almost like a challenge, "Go and sell everything and give away all that money too" and the next level right on top of that is "Come follow me." As we progress in our ability to keep the commandments and repent we will see our ability to follow Christ grow. We will become willing to let go our earthly treasures and focus on the eternal treasures and follow God's will for our lives rather than our own. As the Rich Young Man, we will desire to become better than obedient. We will not obey out of a desire for a reward but out of an inherent desire to be good.
But looking again deeper meanings blossomed before me. The very first words stood out: "Good master, what good thing shall I do...?" and Jesus begins his answer with a correction. "Why callest thou me good? There is none good, but one, that is God..." This surprised me. Even the man who did no sin, who up to this point in his life has followed every commandment perfectly, is saying that we do not measure our own goodness next to his but next to God. Jesus perfectly shows the example he promised to give ALL the glory to God.
And the next realization brought me to the 12 steps. I provided a link to the AA 12 steps because every other 12 step program is based off that original wording. I have studied it in the Healing Through Christ manual for the last 5 years in family support groups and have been amazed by the inspired teaching and enlightenment it has brought into my life. To put it in more generic terms the first step is to recognize our powerlessness over the UNmanageability of our lives. In relation to Jesus telling us to measure our Goodness next to God's Goodness we can quickly realize the huge gap between our behavior and God and our powerlessness to close that gap. The second step is to acknowledge a higher power with the ability to bring us back to sanity. Here is Jesus, the savior of the world, capable of living the perfect life we could not standing as the bridge for that gap between us and God and the Rich Young Man is talking to him asking for his help to get there. The 3rd step is to decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him. And that is exactly what Jesus told the Rich Young Man to do next, turn his worldly wealth and possessions over to the poor and come follow Christ. The wealth and richest possession we all have is our own will, our desires and love are the one thing we can offer to God that he will not take by force.
The most interesting thing is what happens next changes through this new perspective I have from the 12 steps. He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. In the past I have read that part and thought it meant that he didn't do it. That he gave up. However as I have worked the 12 steps in my own life it has been painful and difficult and full of a lot of grief. I realized I had a lot of pride getting in the way of my ability to do God's will and giving up my prideful behavior was sorrowful work (Steps 4-7). Essentially, I am the rich young man in this story (except I am a rich young woman) and my pride and my will and my desires are my great possessions. I needed to make amends for my past behavior that hurt others and that was sorrowful work (Steps 8-9). When I read that part, instead of thinking how hopeless that situation seemed it brought more depth to the story. As I come to God and ask for help to change my sinful ways it is very much like the 12 step process. Even step 4 is about taking inventory and now this rich young man has been charged with the next step to take inventory of what he has and let it go. Ooooo, it could take pages and pages for me to explain how well this parallels the 12 steps. I will just have to hope that this will suffice for now and if more clarification is needed I will happily expound on it later.
Just to circle back to my point at the beginning that our discipleship is progressive. The 12 step program isn't something you do once and you finish. You don't graduate from it. It is a process that you practice for the rest of your life. We cycle through it over and over again because we don't usually give up our bad behavior after one epiphany. It takes practice and mistakes and repenting and trying again day by day and sometimes moment by moment.
I just want to end with this the light and understanding that I have to offer of what I learned when I studied this one bit of scripture and I am so grateful for it and would love to hear what other people learned too. Please comment below if you have questions or comments about what I shared.
