He could tell you the thing in one word.
He is not confused about it. He does not need anybody to explain it to him or help him work out what the problem is. He has known for about two years, and he could say it right now, out loud, in one word, and be completely accurate.
He has even thought about after. He knows roughly what the first month would look like and which conversations would have to happen and what would be harder. He has run the whole thing in his head more than once, all the way to the end, and it comes out fine.
He has not done it.
That is the whole situation, and the strange part is how little mystery there is in it. People talk about this like it is about not knowing. He knows. Knowing turned out not to be the thing.
He got a straight answer and did not like it
A man runs up to Jesus in the road and kneels down. He is not hostile. He genuinely wants to know.
They go back and forth a bit, and then this happens:
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. (Mark 10:21, King James Version)
Read the first four words. Jesus beholding him loved him. Mark stops the story to tell you what was on Jesus' face before He said the hard thing.
Then He names it. One thing. Specific. No softening and no list, and no invitation to work out for himself what it might be.
And then:
And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:22)
He walks. He understood the cost precisely, and he did not move, and he went away sad rather than angry, which tells you he knew the answer was right.
Now notice what Jesus does not do. He does not chase him. He does not negotiate it down. He does not call after him with a smaller version.
You are looked at with love before you are told the hard thing, and both of those are in the same verse. Mark 10 puts them together on purpose, and it is His Spirit who lets a person hear an accurate answer without hearing contempt in it.
What it is actually paying
Paul asks a question about this that nobody asks themselves, because it is uncomfortable to answer honestly.
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. (Romans 6:21)
What fruit had ye then. What did it actually pay you.
Not what did it promise. Not what does it feel like in the first ten minutes. What has it actually handed you, over the whole run of it, adding up the good and the bad, honestly.
That is a fair question and it is the one thing the thing itself never wants asked out loud.
And Proverbs puts the mechanics of hiding it plainly:
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. (Proverbs 28:13)
Two verbs in the second half. Confess. Forsake. Say it, and put it down. The verse does not treat those as the same act, and it does not let either one stand alone.
You have been held up by something other than the thing you are afraid to put down. Romans 6 asks what it has actually paid, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than your own resolve who makes an honest answer to that survivable.
Somebody in the same city did move
There is a second man, in the same book, in almost the same position, and he goes the other way.
Zacchaeus is rich and everybody knows how he got that way. Jesus invites Himself to the man's house, and the crowd is not happy about it. And then, standing up, in front of all of them:
And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. (Luke 19:8)
He says a number. Half. And then a second number for anything taken wrongly.
That is not a feeling. That is arithmetic said out loud in public, and it costs him more than the first man was asked for.
Two men, same subject, opposite outcome, and Jesus handles both of them the same way: He tells the truth and does not chase.
You are not ended by what you put down. Luke 19 has a man do it out loud with numbers attached, and it is His Spirit who makes that something a man does rather than plans.
They put a value on it
There is a moment in Acts that is worth knowing because of one detail Luke includes.
A lot of people in Ephesus had been into things they should not have been into. When they turned, they did not just stop quietly:
Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. (Acts 19:19)
They counted it.
Somebody stood there and added it up, and the number went into the record, and it was an enormous amount.
Luke does not put that in to make anybody feel good about the sacrifice. He puts it in because it is what happened. They knew exactly what it cost and they knew the number, and they did it anyway, in public, together.
You are looking at a real price and you are not looking at an impossible one. Acts 19 has the number written down, and it is His Spirit who is described all through that chapter as the one at work while it happened.
God says what He wants out of this
There is a sentence in Ezekiel that is easy to miss because of the chapter it sits in.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live. (Ezekiel 18:31-32)
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.
He is not standing over this waiting to be proved right. He says so directly, in the middle of a chapter about consequences, which is where you would least expect Him to say it.
Turn yourselves, and live. That is the whole ask, and the reason attached to it is that He does not want the other thing.
You are not being waited out until you run out of road. Ezekiel 18 says what He wants in His own words, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes a verse that old and makes it read like it is about tonight.
So say the word.
You are not ended by turning, and you never were going to be. Jesus looked at a man and loved him and then told him exactly what it would cost, and Mark 10 puts the love in the same verse as the cost and puts it there first, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that order something a man can feel rather than merely notice.
And own your share of it. You are not a bystander in your own life, and the article that blames everything around you would be letting you off a hook you already know you are on. Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit convicts about something specific and always leaves a door open, which is how you tell Him apart from the voice that only accuses.
Nothing here promises the next three weeks are easy. The man in the car nearly took it back twice, and the man in the road walked away sad and Jesus let him go. You are covered by a mercy that answers confessing and forsaking, and you were never the outcome God wanted the other way (Proverbs 28:13, Ezekiel 18:32), and it is His Spirit rather than your plan who makes saying it out loud a receiving.
If this is heavier than one person can hold, that is not weakness and it is not a sign of doing it wrong. Say it to somebody today: a doctor, a counselor, somebody you trust. If it goes further than that, call or text the 988 crisis line, and sit down with a person while you do it if there is one nearby.
Declare this over yourself
Say it out loud. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so the authority to speak over this is genuinely yours, given to you and never invented. Jesus looked at a man with love before He named the cost, so speak to the thing you have been able to name for two years: you have standing to address it because He has already told you what it is worth. An ambassador carries the King's word and never his own opinion, so say what God has said and leave the outcome to Him. Every line below is Mark 10:21 and Proverbs 28:13 handed back in your own voice, and it is His Spirit, not how loud you say it, that makes saying it a receiving.
- Thing I know I have to put down, you are not what is holding me up and you never were. The Word of God says whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy, and it takes two verbs to get there and I am doing both.
- Fear that the cost is the bigger number, you are finished in the name of Jesus. I am steady and I am able, because Acts 19 has a room of people count the price out loud, write the number down, and burn the lot.
- Father, You take no pleasure in the other outcome and Your word says so in Your own voice. I receive Your mercy today, and I am telling You the name of it out loud instead of talking around it.
Mark 10:21
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