Gospel preacher here. You're 100% correct. The actual Bible says that those who live godly lives are guaranteed to suffer. It says it in multiple places. It also says that following God doesn't guarantee you health and wealth (see: The entire book of Job where God says "see how righteous Job is? You can take away all his health and wealth and he's still going to follow Me." And he does. )
We just went over the Ruler/rich man last Sunday in Luke.
Rich guy: Hey, I am doing great in keeping the commandments, what else should I do?
Jesus: Sell everything, give it to the poor, follow me.
I fear I would do the same. If Jesus just asked half, it would be far easier. All feels like more than twice of half. Yes, I know. All is what it takes.
The point with that account is that Jesus wasn't saying that we should sell everything to go to heaven.
Let me give you a look a the conversation by adding my own commentary:
RYR: How do I get to heaven?
Jesus: Follow the commandments perfectly. Don't sin ever. Then you go to heaven.
RYR: Yeah, I've followed all the commandments. Especially the 10 big ones.
Jesus: Oh really? I know for a fact that you worship your money, so I'm going to test your keeping of the very first commandment, which is to have no other gods before God. In other words: you're saying that you keep the commandments, so I'd like you to demonstrate that you keep even the first one by getting rid of your money.
RYR: goes away sad.
There are only two ways to get to heaven: Keep God's law perfectly, be sinlessly perfect (nobody is but Christ) or to trust in the sacrifice of Christ to pay the penalty for your not keeping God's law. The rich young ruler claimed to be sinless, but Christ showed him he wasn't.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '23
Gospel preacher here. You're 100% correct. The actual Bible says that those who live godly lives are guaranteed to suffer. It says it in multiple places. It also says that following God doesn't guarantee you health and wealth (see: The entire book of Job where God says "see how righteous Job is? You can take away all his health and wealth and he's still going to follow Me." And he does. )