<p>19:21&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to him: If you would be perfect-</em>&nbsp;The Lord is saying that if the man wants to serve Him on the highest level, then he should sell all and give to the poor. And the man went away from Christ because of that. Because in his pride, he considered he was serving already on the highest level. This introduction of the idea of different levels of service is seamlessly in context with the teaching about 'receiving' the Lord's high standards concerning divorce and remarriage; but the Lord had recognized that not all were able to reach them. And this incident happens in demonstration of this principle. The man could have humbled himself as a little child, and admitted he couldn't rise to that standard of selling all- and yet still begged to be allowed a place as a Christ follower. And surely the Lord would have accepted him, because there is no evidence that literally selling all we have is a global requirement for men to enter the Kingdom. Zacchaeus only have&nbsp;<em>half</em>&nbsp;of his goods away (Lk. 19:8). This is, therefore, encouragement for all who feel they can't rise up to the highest standards. There is still a place for them, for all of us- for we all fail to attain them. Only our pride will turn us away because of their existence and our failure to attain them. The incident also functions as a foil for those who think they are in a position to condemn those who don't rise up to the highest level regarding divorce and remarriage- have they, with their perfect marriages, sold all they have and given to the poor? If not, then allow others likewise to live on a lower level in other areas of human life. See on :26&nbsp;<em>With God all things are possible.&nbsp;</em></p>
<p><em>Go sell your possessions-&nbsp;</em>We note that the Lord treated each person differently. Jesus approved Zacchaeus' distribution of only half of his possessions- whilst demanding that the rich young man give away literally all. And He never seems to have demanded that those of His followers who owned houses should sell them. &nbsp;See on :16&nbsp;<em>What good thing.</em>&nbsp;The same principle is seen in His preceding teaching about divorce and remarriage- His ideal standard is not &lsquo;given&rsquo; to everyone, just as it is not a requirement of everyone that they sell and they have and give to the poor. The Lord taught that we receive the Lord's goods [s.w. &quot;what you have&quot;] on conversion to Him (25:14). We resign all, but receive all. By giving away our earthly wealth, we directly receive wealth in Heaven. Lk. 12:15,33,44 make a sustained play on this Greek word: &quot;A man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of the&nbsp;<em>things which he possesses</em>&nbsp;[s.w.]... sell&nbsp;<em>what you have</em>&nbsp;[s.w.] and give alms... [the Lord] will make [such a man] ruler over all&nbsp;<em>that he has</em>&nbsp;[s.w.]&quot;. Whilst the specific command to the young man to sell all he had and give it to the poor was not in one sense universal, i.e. not a command to every believer, yet the spirit of it (according to Luke 12) is indeed to be followed by us all. We must at least &quot;forsake ['to bid farewell to'] all that [we] have [s.w.]&quot; (Lk. 14:33). The early believers did not 'say' that anything they possessed [s.w.] was their own (Acts 4:32)- Luke surely intends us to connect this with his earlier record of how the Lord had taught that our attitude, at very least, must be that we do not really 'own' those things which we apparently 'have'.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Luke adds: &quot;One thing you lack...&quot;. The Lord was quoting from the LXX of Ps. 23:1. Because the Lord [Jesus] is our shepherd, &quot;not one thing is lacking to me&quot;. The selling and sharing of his wealth is paralleled by the Lord with following Him. The one thing that was lacking was to shed his wealth&nbsp;<em>and</em>&nbsp;follow Christ. To follow Christ, to have Him as our shepherd, is therefore no merely intellectual affair, nor is it a question of legalistic obedience to a set of principles we inherited from our youth. It requires the most painful sacrifices.</p>
<p><em>And give to the poor</em>- Lk. 18:22 uses the word &quot;distribute&quot;. The Lord laboured the point: 'Give, yes go out and distribute the proceeds, to the poor'. Luke again uses the word in describing how the early believers did indeed sell their possessions and 'distribute' to the poor within the ecclesia (Acts 4:35).</p>
<p><em>And you shall have treasure in heaven, and come follow me- </em>Alluded to in James 1:12.</p>
