Daily Journey Through the Great Fast With the Early Churchنموونە

The life of a follower of Jesus is not easy and not all will choose to walk that narrow path that leads to life. In the parable of the rich young ruler, he tells Jesus that from his young age he has followed all the commandments to the letter, yet, Jesus tells him he lacks one thing: give your possessions away to the poor and your treasure will be in heaven, then I want you to take up your cross and follow Me. What a sad sight it must have been to see him turn away “sorrowfully” because he had a lot on Earth he couldn’t part from, that he could not reject his grip on the Earthly treasures, to give them up in order to receive heavenly treasures, which are far more precious and weightier.

The rich young ruler kept to the letter of the law; however, it was done with pride and we see that because of his pride in his “accomplishments” to hold to the letter of the law that he did not hold the laws in high regard out of his love for God but because of his pride; that’s why he turned away sad, because he was told he would have to do something contrary to following his way.

We must choose daily to follow Christ or to follow our desires. The rich young ruler was not able to allow the Spirit to lead him, but was led by his body’s desires. As followers of Jesus we must “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” [Galatians 5:16-18]. Daily we need to choose what is good, to follow Christ, and not allow ourselves to be arrogant like this young man, assuming we are justified by our works, but we are justified by the work of the blood of Christ on the Holy Cross.

“The rich man followed his own counsel, having rejected the precept of dividing his resources with the needy. He was abandoned by the Lord to his own opinion. There is no justification for applying the term “harshness” on this account to describe Christ. For each individual free will is able to choose to defile itself. “Behold, I have set before you good and evil.” Choose that which is good. If you cannot because you will not (for he has shown that you can if you will, because he has proposed each to your free will) you ought to depart from him whose will you elect not to do.” [Tertullian of Carthage, 3rd century scholar]

“The young man became arrogant through the observance of the law. He did not recognize that the consummation of the law is Christ. He assumed he could be justified by works. He was not aware that Jesus had come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and that the law could not save except through justifying faith. He questioned the Lord of the law and the only begotten God as if he were an ordinary teacher of precepts that were written down in the law. Hence, the Lord rejected this declaration of a spurious faith, because the question was put to him as if he were merely a teacher of the law. He replied: “Why do you call me good?” In order to make known how much he was to be recognized and acknowledged as good, he declared: “No one is good but God only.” He would not have rejected the attribute of goodness if it had been attributed to him as God.” [St. Hilary of Poitiers, 4th century Bishop of Poitiers]