What Jesus Really Meant About Wealth, Surrender, and the Kingdom of God

When it comes to your faith, there will be seasons when you feel weak or experience pockets of doubt. These moments can be unsettling, especially when your walk with God once felt vibrant and certain. You may find yourself questioning why your spiritual strength seems diminished or why confidence in God’s presence feels harder to grasp.

At times, God may feel quiet or distant, as though your prayers are met with silence. You might sense that you’ve plateaued in your faith, going through the motions without the same depth or hunger you once had. Often, this creates a lingering feeling that something is missing—yet these seasons are not signs of failure, but invitations to deeper trust and perseverance in discipleship.

Examining Your Relationship With the Holy Spirit

The challenge: what does your relationship with the Holy Spirit truly look like? Discipleship is not merely about external obedience or intellectual agreement with doctrine, but about an active, living relationship with God dwelling within you. When faith begins to feel dry or stagnant, it is often worth pausing to ask whether the Spirit’s presence is being acknowledged, welcomed, and depended upon daily.

Is the Holy Spirit of God alive and at work in you right now? This is not a question meant to provoke fear or doubt, but honest reflection. A vibrant discipleship walk is marked by sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading, conviction, and comfort—without Him, faith can easily become routine rather than relational.

Preparing the Soul as a Dwelling Place for the Holy Spirit

Imagine inviting a very special guest to come stay in your home. Most of us would instinctively scrub every room from top to bottom, making sure nothing unclean or neglected remained hidden. In the same way, our soul is like a home, and through discipleship we are inviting the Holy Spirit of God to dwell within us.

When sin is left unaddressed, it acts like mold and mildew in a house. It stains the walls, saturates the carpets, and fills the air with something heavy and musty. Some things are obvious and visible, while others are tucked away in the basement—ignored, but still affecting the entire home.

This leads us to an honest and sobering question: is your soul currently a suitable place for the Holy Spirit? This is not about achieving perfection, but about awareness and willingness. Every believer has some level of spiritual cleaning that needs to take place.

That cleansing begins with confession and repentance. True repentance is more than feeling regret—it includes a firm intention to change, to turn away from what corrupts, and to pursue holiness. The cost of discipleship often starts here: allowing God to confront what is hidden so that His Spirit may dwell freely and fully within us.

Making Room for God’s Undivided Presence

Imagine the love of your life invites you to come stay in their home. You arrive full of excitement and expectation, only to find the rooms crowded with other people and their belongings. The person you longed to be with is there—but their attention is divided, pulled in many directions. Almost immediately, you realize you are just one presence among many, not the central focus you hoped to be.

This image invites a deeply personal question: what does your spiritual “home” look like right now? What is it filled with? Discipleship requires more than inviting God into our lives—it requires making room for Him. When our hearts are crowded with distractions, priorities, and competing loves, God may be present, but He is not central.

The cost of discipleship often reveals itself here. Will God have your full attention when He comes to dwell with you, or will your devotion be spread thin across countless other things? Following Christ means intentionally clearing space so that He is not treated as one commitment among many, but as the one who orders everything else in the home of our soul.

Guarding the Altar Within God’s Temple

Another way to understand this is to remember that God designed your body as a temple, and within that temple is an altar meant for Him alone. An altar is a place of devotion, sacrifice, and worship—it is not shared space. In the context of discipleship, this reminds us that God does not merely want access to our lives; He desires exclusive worship.

This raises a searching question: what idols are currently cluttering your heart? Idols are not always obvious or outwardly sinful—they can be good things elevated to ultimate things. When anything other than God occupies the altar of our hearts, our devotion becomes divided, and the cost of discipleship becomes clear. Following Christ requires identifying, confronting, and removing every rival so that God alone is honored in the temple He designed.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;  you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

1 Corinthians 3:16 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”

Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

Identifying Attachments That Compete With God

Attachments are those unhealthy or excessive desires for worldly things that interfere with our ability to fully unite with God. They subtly shift our dependence away from Him and anchor our hearts to something created rather than the Creator. In discipleship, attachments often reveal where our trust, comfort, or identity is truly rooted.

One way to discern an attachment is to imagine how difficult it would be to let it go. Picture that thing being taken away—if the thought produces deep pain, anxiety, or sadness, it may be more than a preference. It may be something standing between you and God, quietly competing for your devotion.

Attachments can take countless forms. They may be physical possessions like cars, clothes, or homes, or ambitions such as career success, financial security, or social status. Some attachments are internal, like the need for approval, praise, or control over how others see us.

Others appear in patterns of thinking—overthinking, chronic negativity, or obsessing over how life must unfold. Still others are tied to how we seek dopamine and relief, whether through alcohol, drugs, or endless scrolling on social media. Even good things can become attachments: relationships, physical fitness, or even ministry itself. When any of these replace God as the center, the cost of discipleship becomes letting go of what we cling to so that Christ alone remains supreme.

The Rich and the Kingdom of God

In Matthew 19:16–29, Jesus encounters a wealthy, morally upright man who is sincerely seeking eternal life. On the surface, this man appears to have everything in order—obedience, discipline, and religious devotion. Yet through a single interaction, Jesus reveals that something still stands between this man and the Kingdom of God.

This account is not primarily about wealth, but about what the heart clings to when wealth—or anything else—takes God’s place. The story exposes the tension between self-reliance and surrender, showing that entry into the Kingdom is not achieved through moral effort, but through grace and wholehearted trust in Christ.

The Question That Reveals the Heart

In this passage, we encounter the rich young ruler—a man who is morally upright, religious, and seemingly sincere in his pursuit of God. His question to Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, reveals a works-based mindset. He assumes eternal life is something to be earned through effort rather than received by grace.

This moment exposes an important truth: external obedience does not automatically mean a surrendered heart. A person can appear faithful, disciplined, and devout, yet still be clinging to control rather than trusting God fully. Discipleship begins where self-effort ends.

Jesus Exposes What Truly Competes With God

When Jesus responds, “Sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow Me,” He is not laying down a universal rule that salvation is earned through poverty, nor is He commanding all believers to sell everything they own. Instead, Jesus is lovingly and precisely identifying this man’s functional god.

Wealth was not merely something the man possessed—it was something that possessed him. Jesus goes straight to the one thing competing with God for lordship in his life. The issue was not assets, nor the amount of wealth, nor the quality of his possessions. The issue was attachment. Discipleship always confronts whatever we rely on more than God.

The Cost Revealed: A Sorrowful Departure

The text tells us, “He went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” This response is revealing. The man desired eternal life, but not at the cost of his control, security, or identity—all of which were deeply tied to his wealth.

He loved God, but not supremely. He wanted God added to his life, not God as Lord over it. This is where the cost of discipleship becomes unmistakably clear: following Jesus requires surrender, not negotiation.

The Camel and the Eye of the Needle

Jesus then declares, “How difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God… It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom.” This statement shocks His listeners, not because wealth was inherently evil, but because wealth often fuels self-reliance.

Jesus is teaching that human self-sufficiency cannot enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is entered by dependence, humility, and surrender. When riches—or anything else—convince us that we are secure without God, they become a barrier to true discipleship. Only when reliance shifts fully to God can a person truly follow Christ into the Kingdom.

Wealth and the Illusion of Independence

Wealth has a unique way of amplifying the illusion of independence. The more wealth we accumulate, the more we can begin to believe that we are in control—independent from society, systems, or anything beyond ourselves. It creates the feeling that we are self-sufficient and secure, needing less from others and, subtly, less from God.

Yet the reality is often the opposite. The more wealth a person has, the more tightly they can become bound to it. The desire to protect it, grow it, and hold onto it can slowly take hold of the heart until wealth no longer serves us—we serve it. What once felt like freedom can quietly become possession.

Having wealth in itself is not sinful. It can provide comfort, stability, and opportunities to bless others. The danger arises when wealth is allowed to stand between us and God, when it becomes our source of security, identity, or peace. The cost of discipleship here is vigilance: refusing to let wealth become our god, refusing to let it become the attachment that competes with wholehearted devotion to Him.

Temptation Targets Our Weakest Attachments

Satan does not tempt at random—he observes, tests, and identifies our weakest points. Once those vulnerabilities are exposed, he uses them as leverage to draw us toward what feels familiar, comforting, or desirable. These temptations are rarely obvious acts of rebellion; more often, they appeal to existing attachments already rooted in the heart.

When we give in to those lures, they gradually pull us further away from God. The separation is often subtle at first—less prayer, dulled conviction, compromised obedience—but over time the distance grows. The cost of discipleship includes spiritual alertness: recognizing where we are most vulnerable and guarding those places so that temptation does not become a pathway that leads us away from wholehearted devotion to God.

Salvation Is Impossible Without God

The disciples asked a deeply honest and valid question when they said, “Who then can be saved?” They recognized the weight of what Jesus was teaching—that if even the morally upright and materially blessed could not enter the Kingdom by their own strength, then no one stood a chance. Their question reflects the collapse of every human system of self-reliance.

Jesus’ response cuts straight to the heart of the matter: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Salvation is humanly impossible. No amount of discipline, morality, sacrifice, or religious effort can bridge the gap between sinful humanity and a holy God.

The Kingdom of God is entered only by grace. It is not achieved through surrendering attachments, selling possessions, or overcoming temptation by sheer willpower. Those are fruits of discipleship, not the doorway into salvation. The cost of discipleship flows from grace—it never replaces it.

Major Takeaways:

Wealth Is Dangerous to the Heart, Not Automatically Sinful

Wealth is spiritually dangerous, but it is not automatically sinful. Its danger lies in how quietly it can replace trust in God with trust in self. Without vigilance, wealth can shift our confidence away from dependence on God and toward independence rooted in resources, security, and control.

The tragedy of the rich man was not that he had wealth, but that he trusted it more than Jesus. Wealth became the thing he leaned on, the thing that ruled his sense of safety and identity. When that happens, wealth ceases to be a tool and becomes a rival.

The Kingdom Requires Surrender, Not Moral Achievement

The Kingdom of God is not entered through moral achievement, discipline, or outward obedience alone—it requires surrender. The rich man was obedient, religious, and sincere, yet unwilling to surrender what mattered most to him. Obedience without surrender still falls short.

Jesus always confronts the idol. Whatever competes with Christ for first place in your life must be surrendered, not negotiated. The question discipleship forces us to ask is not, “What must I give up?” but rather, “Who do I trust?”

Salvation by Grace, Discipleship by Cost

Salvation is impossible by human effort—only grace saves. Nothing we surrender earns eternal life, and nothing we deny ourselves can purchase the Kingdom. Grace alone opens the door.

Yet following Jesus will cost you something, even as it gives you everything. Discipleship flows from grace, but it demands realignment, reordering, and sometimes painful letting go of what once ruled us.

Sanctification: Ongoing Transformation of the Heart

This teaching also reveals a powerful truth about sanctification. To be made holy requires change, because we are not already holy. Sanctification is an ongoing process of transformation where the heart is continually surrendered and attachments are progressively released.

Sanctification exposes what still competes with Christ. It asks the honest question: “Who or what rules over my life now?” For believers, unforgiven sin is not unpaid sin—it is unsubmitted areas of the heart that have not yet been brought under Christ’s lordship.

Losing This Life to Find the True One

Jesus said, “If you want to follow Me, deny yourself. If you want to find your life, you must lose your life.” Denying yourself is not about self-hatred—it is about denying attachments, false securities, and misplaced trusts that possess you more than God does.

To gain eternal life, you must be willing to lose this life as your ultimate source of meaning. The small pleasures and indulgences of this world are often where temptation quietly dwells, not in dramatic sins but in subtle comforts that slowly take God’s place.

Practicing Daily Denial and Spiritual Discipline

Discipleship is practiced in small, tangible ways. Maybe it begins with one less bite of cake, then later becomes denying the entire late-night indulgence. Maybe it’s turning off the TV sooner, or scrolling less, or choosing silence and prayer instead of constant stimulation.

These acts require discipline and sacrifice, but they also build character and spiritual strength. They train the heart to say no to lesser things so it can say yes to God more fully.

Clearing the Altar: The Cleaning of Your Room

Pray and ask God to show you your attachments. When they are revealed, mentally picture the altar in your soul with those attachments resting on it. Then ask God to show you how to let them go.

Clear the altar so God alone remains. This is the true cleaning of your room—not external behavior modification, but an inward reordering of worship. When Christ alone occupies the altar of the heart, discipleship becomes costly, yes—but also deeply freeing.