If what you are pursuing takes up more time and more focus than pursuing Christ then it has to go.
Even if that be your moral living and keeping every commandment in an ultra-disciplined pious way or you have become wealthy (nothing wrong with that) but the way that happened was the desire for more took over your life, then it has to be surrendered.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19 v 23-26)
It is hard for those who are not desperate, who do not have nothing, who do not need to trust and rely on God for their future to get into the kingdom of God. It is these things that the rich man didn’t have that make us rich. Those with nothing but God often look happier than those who have everything but not Him.
The disciples were once again stunned. Everyone believed that the wealthy were the blessed but Jesus says the wealthy have a stumbling block and it is the condition of the heart. It is difficult for them. Jesus uses a funny image of the largest land animal they can imagine going through the smallest hole. It probably was that which he meant rather than a hole in the city wall that traders would pass through at night. Probably because it was the most impossible (and funniest) of images.
So who could make it? Who could be saved if the wealthy couldn’t get there then there is no hope for them? Jesus looked at the disciples and in the look there was a pause, long enough for them to remember this amazing statement which we quote in every context of our lives and so we should: With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
We can pursue ‘more’ of anything and everything can become an idol if we choose to make it so. The pursuit of more will never satisfy and it will always leave a person outside the rule of God. However, God can meet any person at the place where they have found themselves. He can meet the wealthy, the religious and those who have pursued every idol you can think of and He can break into their life and do what looks impossible. How? It starts with this story of ‘selling everything and giving to the poor’. It is a heart that says all my ‘stuff’ is worthless, all I have become and all I have pursued is worth nothing compared to choosing Christ.
Missions Paul 