Why are You Calling Me Good?

Mat 19:16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? Mat 19:17 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.

Here is a blessed verse adding even more evidence that Jesus is Who He said He was, very God!

The young man simply reverenced the Lord as he prefaced his question with the title "Good Master." Jesus preceded His answer with an eye-opening lesson for the man. "Why are you calling me good? There is only one who is good and that is God." And then He went on to address the point at hand, which, really hinged on this point of Him being the good Master.

No doubt the man was a very religious Jew. He claimed to have kept all the commandments from the earliest age. He was counting on his religiosity to buy him eternal life. As with most Jews, he was having a hard time accepting this Rabbi as, not only Messiah, but very God in human flesh.

Jesus was about to show him that human goodness had limits. The young man, though pretty good and being good, was not willing to forsake his riches and follow Jesus.

But first, the Lord had to let the young man know Who He was, the Good One, God! "If you are calling me good, you should know that I am God. And, if I am God, then you should be willing to trust Me, not your works."

You see, it is not our heritage, not our riches, not our accomplishments, not our goodness, not even our belief system which gains us eternal life. The young man had all those bases covered. But he still sensed eternal life was not in the bag for him. The thing he lacked was the willingness to denounce all of that and follow Jesus, to follow God, with all of his being.

Many people I know are falling short of the goal, because they merely add Jesus to their religious resume’. They feel they must maintain all the aforementioned rather than denounce them and put their complete trust in Jesus. What folks must realize is that goodness is not innate, it is imparted. It must be bestowed from the only One Who is good, that is God.

You may be a good person, but without the complete trust solely in our Good God, you will not find eternal life.