How do you know if something is real or fake?
I was reminded of this recently by the plastic cookies you find in a kids’ play kitchen. They look remarkably realistic—same shape, same color, little chocolate chips baked right in. A three-year-old can put one on a pretend plate, put it in a pretend oven, and proudly serve it at a pretend restaurant. But there is one problem: you can’t actually eat it.
It doesn’t matter how convincing the cookie looks. It doesn’t matter how carefully your child serves it to you and says, “Eat, Daddy!” It isn’t real. And that distinction matters when we talk about faith.
There is a kind of faith that is interested in Jesus, attracted to Jesus, impressed by Jesus—even enthusiastic about Jesus. But when Jesus’ terms become costly, it discovers that what looked like faith wasn’t actually faith.
In Mark 10, Jesus shows us what real faith looks like. Real faith receives from Jesus, surrenders to Jesus, rests in Jesus, and finds Jesus worth everything.
Real Faith Receives Like a Child
The passage begins with people bringing children to Jesus so that He might touch and bless them. The disciples, however, rebuke them. They apparently view these children as an interruption to Jesus’ more important work.
Jesus responds very differently.
Mark says Jesus became indignant. That’s a strong word. It is the same kind of language Mark uses elsewhere when Jesus forcefully rebukes demons. Jesus is deeply troubled by the way these children are being treated, and He tells the disciples, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them.”
Children had little social status or power in the ancient world. They couldn’t contribute much to society, improve your position, or repay you for what you gave them. Jesus not only welcomes them—He holds them up as an example of what it means to receive the kingdom of God.
The point isn’t that children are naturally innocent, sincere, or humble. Anyone who has raised children knows better. The point is how a child receives: empty-handed and dependent.
A child comes without anything to barter. Even if a child possesses something, it was given to him by someone else. A child knows he needs someone else to provide what he cannot provide for himself.
That’s how we come to Jesus.
We don’t come with a spiritual résumé. We don’t negotiate the terms of salvation. We don’t tell God how our accomplishments, intelligence, generosity, morality, or religious activity should earn us a place in His kingdom.
We come empty-handed.
Romans 11 asks, “Who has given to Him that it might be paid back to him?” The answer is no one. Everything we have ultimately comes from God.
The kingdom of God isn’t a wage we earn; it is a gift we receive.
So ask yourself: Is this how you come to the Lord? Helpless, dependent upon His grace, and trusting that He is more than willing to meet your need?
Real Faith Follows Jesus on His Terms
Immediately after this, a wealthy man runs up to Jesus and asks, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He has come to the right person with the right question. If you have a question about eternal life, you should probably ask the One who gives it.
But Jesus doesn’t give him the easy answer he seems to be looking for. He asks about God’s commands, and the man confidently says he has kept them from his youth.
Then Mark gives us one of the most beautiful details in the entire story: “Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him.”
Jesus doesn’t yell at him. He doesn’t mock him. He doesn’t berate him. He loves him enough to tell him the truth.
That’s an important reminder about biblical love. Love doesn’t merely affirm us; love tells us the truth that can save us.
Jesus exposes what is really happening in this man’s heart. “You lack one thing: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and come, follow Me.”
Jesus isn’t teaching that everyone must sell everything they own in order to become a Christian. He is putting His finger on this particular man’s idol.
His possessions weren’t simply something he had.
They were something that had him.
An idol is anything that occupies God’s rightful place in our lives and competes with our allegiance to Him. Sometimes idols are obviously destructive things—addictions, greed, or sinful behaviors. But sometimes they are good things that become ultimate things: money, marriage, children, career, comfort, control, approval, or success.
Jesus essentially says, “Put it down. Give Me the throne.”
The man can’t do it. He walks away grieving because he has great wealth.
He wanted eternal life, but he wasn’t willing to surrender the thing that stood between him and wholehearted allegiance to Jesus.
And that forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions.
What sits on the throne of your life? What would be hardest for you to surrender if Jesus asked you to give it to Him?
For an unbeliever, this is a call to lay down your idols and give your allegiance to Jesus. For a believer, it is a reminder that idol creep is real. We can put Jesus on the throne and then slowly begin handing pieces of it back to ourselves.
Following Jesus happens in a moment, but surrender happens for a lifetime.
Real Faith Rests on God’s Grace
The disciples are shocked by Jesus’ teaching. In their culture, wealth was often viewed as evidence of God’s favor. If someone was wealthy, healthy, and successful, people could assume that God was pleased with him.
Jesus dismantles that thinking.
The disciples ask, “Then who can be saved?”
Jesus answers, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”
That’s the heart of the gospel.
Salvation is not something human beings accomplish. It is something God accomplishes.
We can use wealth to mask our dependence on God, but we can also use morality, religious activity, church attendance, Bible knowledge, or ministry success to do the same thing. We can build a religious résumé and convince ourselves that God must be impressed with us.
But imagine owing a billion-dollar debt. It doesn’t matter how hard you work if you have no possible means of paying it. You could make payments every day for the rest of your life and still never solve the problem.
That’s our spiritual condition apart from Christ.
Real faith doesn’t come to God with a résumé. It comes with empty hands and rests completely on grace.
If we could save ourselves, we wouldn’t need a Savior. That’s why we need Jesus.
Real Faith Values the Reward
Peter, perhaps speaking for the rest of the disciples, reminds Jesus that they have left everything to follow Him. In other words, “We gave things up. Are we actually going to be okay?”
Jesus doesn’t pretend that following Him costs nothing. He tells them that there will be sacrifice. There may be times when following Jesus means leaving behind possessions, relationships, comfort, security, or opportunities we once considered precious.
Christianity is not an invitation to follow Jesus because He promises an easier life.
But Jesus also promises that what we gain in Him is infinitely greater than anything we lose for Him.
He speaks of receiving a hundredfold in this life, along with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. In other words, following Jesus creates a new family and a new community. You may lose something in one earthly relationship, but Christ gives you a family of believers. You may surrender earthly security, but you gain Christ Himself.
That is why the Christian life cannot ultimately be measured by what we sacrifice.
Missionary David Livingstone once pushed back against the language of “sacrifice,” saying that when he considered what he had given up for the sake of Christ, he could hardly call it sacrifice. Compared with the glory that awaits us, he said, these things are nothing.
That’s the perspective real faith gives us.
What we gain in Christ is worth more than anything we lose for Christ.
And that brings us back to the rich young man.
He walked away because he valued his possessions more than Jesus. But Jesus is the ultimate Rich Young Ruler. He had everything, yet He gave it all away to come after us. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Jesus gave up everything to get you.
And now He says, “Follow Me.”
Real faith doesn’t merely admire Jesus. It receives from Him with empty hands, surrenders its idols, rests entirely on His grace, and trusts that Jesus is worth everything.
So what does real faith look like in your life?
Is there something you’re trying to use to earn God’s favor? Something you are unwilling to surrender? Something that has quietly taken Jesus’ place on the throne?
Perhaps today you need to come to Jesus again—not because you need to be saved again, but because you need to remember what it means to follow Him.
Come empty-handed.
Lay down your idols.
Rest in His grace.
And remember: Jesus is worth everything.
