Faith Comes ONLY with Obedience - Luke 17-19

Matthew 19:29 (ESV Strong's)
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Faith comes ONLY with Obedience

It is important not to take the above verse out of context.   Jesus is, at this point, teaching his disciplines and answering a question they asked.  The scene previous to this verse is about the “Rich Young Ruler” who had many possessions.  He, apparently, was a good man and wanted to know from Jesus how much should he “do” to have eternal life.    Jesus recognized that he had been “good” and simply told him to do one more thing:  Sell all that he has and give it to poor people.   This destroyed the young man’s spirit.   Why?  Because he was rich and had a lot of stuff.   As he walked away Jesus spoke the famous quote:

“It is easier for a came to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 19:24)

That caused the disciples to ask, “who then can be saved?”

This brought about our above verse.   Jesus is making the point that faith is not simply intellectual ascent.  Faith is an act of obedience whereby we make EVERYTHING else second to Christ.   This is not the “God First, Family Second” mentality.  Jesus use the word, “left” houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, in the above verse.  That is the Greek word, aphiēmi.  It is an emphatic term to “forsake” something.  When we put other things in front of our faith, precious things to us, we lose out on the blessings God’s promises.   Faith is an act of obedience to forsake all and follow Christ.  We still have responsibilities to all those things.  Jesus is not telling us to literally walk away from family.  Jesus is always talking about heart issues.  When we put the needs of others and our relationship with them before our walk with Jesus, those are the things that make it like threading a needle with camel. When we have other people and other things on the throne of our lives, we can not say we have faith in Christ.    Christ is telling us that we are to have Him ONLY on the throne of our lives.   Many people walk around with an intellectual ascent that Jesus is God and He died for their sins.   But, Jesus real disciples understand that faith is a practice of having Jesus first in their lives and controlling their throne.   Note James’ words:

James 2:14-17 (ESV Strong's)
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Notice how that verse impacts the story of the Rich Young Ruler.   He had possessions but would not give them to the poor.   Faith, without obedience, is dead.