Consuming Fire Daily Devotional
It always will be hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is hard even to believe that one must be born from above—must pass into a new and unknown consciousness. The ceremonial Christian and the law-faithful Jew both shrink from the self-annihilation, the life of grace and truth, the all-embracing love that fills the law full and sets it aside. They cannot accept a condition of being as in itself eternal life.
Or are you so well satisfied with what you are, that you have never hungered and thirsted after the righteousness of God, the perfection of your being? If so, then be comforted; the Master does not require of you to sell what you have and give to the poor. You follow him! Bring him a true heart, an obedient hand:....
“Why should it be difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven?” He is ready to look upon this as an arbitrary decree, arising from some prejudice in the divine mind. Why should the rich fare differently? They do not perceive that the law is they shall fare like other people, whereas they want to fare as rich people...
The youth is looking for some unknown good thing to do, and the Lord sends him back to the doing of what he knows, and that in answer to his question concerning the way to eternal life. He has already more than hinted where the answer lies, namely, in God himself, but that the youth is not yet capable of receiving; he must begin with him farther back:...
