Tag: Mark 10

What You’re Holding is Holding You

Jesus asks every man to give up one thing, and it’s always the thing costing him his life.

A man runs up to Jesus and falls on his knees in the road.

He’s not begging for healing or asking to be set free from something. He’s just the opposite. He’s the success story. Young, wealthy, respected, religiously serious. The kind of man every father in the village held up as the one to emulate. He’s done everything right, and he knows it, yet something is missing. So he runs, drops to the ground, and asks the question that has haunted his whole life: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Mark records the detail.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor… Then come, follow me.” Mark 10:21 (NIV)

“Jesus looked at him and loved him.” This isn’t a cold demand from a distant God. This is love looking a man dead in the eye and telling him the one thing no one else had the nerve to say.

You know how the story ends. The man’s face falls. And he walks away sad, because he had great wealth.

He is the only person in all the Gospels who comes to Jesus sincerely, is personally invited to follow—and says no. And Jesus lets him go. He loved him and let him walk away. Jesus didn’t chase him or soften the terms. Just watched the man he loved choose the thing that was killing him.

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Here’s what we often get wrong.

We hear “sell everything,” and we assume, “That’s about money, and I’m not rich, so this one’s not for me.” And we miss the point.

It was never about the money. It was about the one thing. Jesus looked at this man and pointed to the one thing that had grown into his real god, the thing he trusted instead of God, the thing he couldn’t live without. For this man, it was money. For you it might be something else entirely.

Jesus doesn’t ask every man to sell everything. But he does ask every man to hand over the one thing he’s holding onto instead of God.

Following Jesus will cost you exactly one thing. It’s the one thing you’ve been trusting to save you instead of him.

And that’s why it feels like you’re dying. Because that one thing — the career, the reputation, the control, the comfort, the grudge, the secret, the image you’ve spent forty years building — it doesn’t feel like an idol. It feels like you. Handing it over feels like losing yourself.

Jesus never pretended otherwise. He didn’t hide the cost in the fine print. He held it up in broad daylight.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Mark 8:34–35 (NIV)

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Here’s the life-changing good news.

The thing Jesus asks you to give up is the thing that was already killing you.

That man’s wealth wasn’t making him alive. He ran to Jesus in the first place because it wasn’t enough. Something was still missing, and he knew it. The very thing he couldn’t let go of was what had left him on his knees in the road, asking a stranger how to really live. Jesus wasn’t trying to take something good from him. He was trying to pry his fingers off the thing that was strangling him.

He’s not asking you to lose your life. He’s asking you to let go of what was costing you your life—so He can give you a real one.

You think He’s asking you to trade a real life for a religious one. To give up the good stuff for duty and rules. That’s exactly what the rich young man thought, and that’s why he walked away.

The truth is the reverse. You’re trading the thing that was quietly killing you for the only life that was ever real. You lose your life to find it. Every man who has actually done it says the same thing on the other side: I thought I was giving something up. I had no idea what I was getting.

The cost is real. I won’t insult you by pretending it isn’t. It will feel like you’re dying. But it’s the death of what was already taking you under. On the other side of it is the man you were made to be, and a life you cannot currently imagine from where you’re standing.

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Here’s what I’d ask you to consider this week.

You already know your one thing. The second you read “whatever you’ve been trusting instead of God,” something specific came up. It’s the thing you’d fight hardest to keep. The thing you trust to make you okay more than you trust God. Don’t argue it away. Tell the truth.

You don’t have to let go of it this week. That may be years of work. This week, do the one thing the rich young man wouldn’t: stay in the conversation. Don’t walk away sad. Bring the thing to Jesus and say, “I think this is my one thing. I don’t know how to hand it over yet. But I’m not leaving.”

What am I holding onto instead of God — and what has it already cost me to keep it?

He’s looking at you the way He looked at that man in the road. With love. And telling you the one true thing. The only question is whether you’ll stay in the road long enough to find out what’s on the other side of letting go.

Don’t walk away sad. Whatever he’s asking you to release, he’s only trying to free your hands for something better.

— Ron

The Real Reason You Burned Out

It’s not what you think. And the distinction changes everything.

Many people assume that burnout, a drifting marriage, or midlife emptiness is simply a result of overwork. They suggest solutions such as getting more rest, setting better boundaries, taking vacations, seeking help from a good counselor, or practicing self-care.

I held this belief for years and tried many of these approaches. Some provided temporary relief, but none offered a lasting solution.

Ultimately, the issue wasn’t about capacity; it was about identity.

Here’s what I mean.

The Engine Underneath the Exhaustion

Many men who experience burnout are not simply those who work too hard; they are often those who have worked from the wrong mindset for too long.

There is a type of work that flows from one’s identity—a deep understanding of who you are before God that is independent of your output. This kind of work can be challenging and demanding, but it does not drain you. It draws from an account that does not rely on your performance to remain full.

On the other hand, there is a type of work that defines one’s identity—where what you produce becomes the proof of your significance, God’s approval, and your worth. This kind of work is always exhausting because it draws from an account that requires constant replenishment through your output. If you stop producing, that account runs empty, and when it does, you feel empty as well.

Most Christian men I’ve worked with are in the second category. Not because they are faithless. Because the culture they were formed in — church culture, achievement culture, Christian masculinity culture — told them, implicitly and explicitly, that their value was tied to what they produced.

The good husband. The reliable provider. The faithful elder. The man who shows up, delivers the goods, never complains, and keeps the whole thing running.

There is nothing wrong with any of those things. The problem is what happens when they become the foundation of your worth rather than the overflow of it.

The Sequence That Changes Everything

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” — Mark 1:10–11 (NIV)

I want you to notice something easy to read past.

The Father speaks before Jesus has done a single thing.

No sermon. No miracle. No healing, no teaching, no confrontation with the Pharisees. No proof of anything. Jesus has just come up out of the water — and before the ministry begins, before a single act — the Father speaks.

“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Approval before performance. Identity before assignment. Son before servant.

“The Father’s declaration does not say: perform well and then you will be loved. It says: you are loved. Now go.”

Most men I know have this completely reversed. They feel like sons on the days they’ve performed well — as fathers, as husbands, as providers, as leaders. They feel like a disappointment on the days they haven’t.

The exhaustion of living that way is not a spiritual failing. It is the completely logical result of building your sense of worth on a foundation that shifts every time your output does.

Until you live as a son first — until the Father’s declaration becomes the thing you stand on rather than the thing you strive toward — you will keep performing for an approval you already have.

And you will keep burning out. Not because you are weak. Because you are building on sand.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! — 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

Our identity is declared, not earned. It is given to us generously and unconditionally, before we have done anything to deserve it.

Consider this thought for the week: If your worth were truly untouchable—if nothing you did today could add to it or subtract from it—how would that change the way you show up?

Your answer reflects the distance between where you are now and where you want to be.

This gap—between understanding something theologically and living it out personally—is something I frequently see in men who come to Rebound. While their theology may be correct, the foundation is often grounded in performance.

The process of rebuilding begins with addressing that gap. If you find yourself in this situation, please feel free to reply. I would like to hear about where you are.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Son before servant. That shift is what Rebound is built around.

The 8-week Rebound program exists to take a man from performance-based identity to son-based identity — not as a theological exercise, but as a lived transformation that holds. This is the hinge on which everything else turns.

Learn about Rebound →

— Ron