"The One Thing" by Garris Elkins

Every life has that "one thing" God is after. That one thing is what holds us back from moving into the calling and destiny God has planned for each of us.

In Mark chapter 10 a sad story about a rich man takes place. This man comes to Jesus and asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus tells him to live in obedience to God's Law and quotes the last five of the Ten Commandments - the ones dealing with how we are to relate to people. The man responds that he has done all of that.

The Lord then went after the one thing in this man's life that stood between him and God - his wealth. It is not always wealth. It was in this particular case. It can be your boat. It can be our education or stature in the community. It can be my ministry or yours.

Jesus asked the man to liquidate his assets and give the money to the poor. No answer came from the man - his countenance fell and he simply walked away. This is what happens when the "one thing" stands between us and God. We will usually walk away from a deeper relationship with Him. I am sure this man continued to do the religious thing, but he would never become the man called him to be until the "one thing" was dealt with.

God has been asking me lately about some "one things" in my life. By themselves they are not evil. It is what I do with them, and where I place them in my life, that makes them evil. Evil means that they have become a barrier to God's work in my life.

God is going after the things in the life of His people that are similar to the wealth of the man in Mark 10. It can be fearful to say yes to Jesus beyond the act of getting saved. This is where Lordship takes place - where He leads and we follow. We first meet Him as our Savior then give Him permission to become our Lord. While He is Lord of all, we are the ones who chose to make Him the Lord of our lives.

God is after that "one thing" in the life of every member within the Body of Christ. Once we make the decision to deal with our “one thing” our individual decisions will begin to touch the lives of others and, in the end, bring new health to the Church. If we let Him go after that "one thing" in our life we will find out who He has destined us to become. Our destiny and fulfilled callings always stand on the other side of our “one thing.”