What does it mean for the Kingsman to pay attention to the Spirit of Counsel?
A man ran to Jesus, knelt in the road, asked the right question, and walked away sorrowful. Mark 10:17-31 warns about the cost of ignoring counsel, and it also invites the Kingsman to listen to the Spirit of counsel before he decides what he can afford to obey.
Isaiah said the Spirit of the Lord would rest on the coming King as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might (Isaiah 11:2). He was named Wonderful Counsellor (Isaiah 9:6). So when Jesus answers the man’s question, the counsel comes from the source itself. The Kingsman can learn four things from what happened next.
Counsel Must Come From the Highest Authority (Mark 10:17-18). The man called Jesus “Good Teacher,” and Jesus stopped him: why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. Jesus was not disowning His goodness. He was making the man think about what he had just said. A man cannot call Jesus good as a courtesy and then treat His words as one opinion among many. If Jesus is good in the way only God is good, His word settles the matter. The Kingsman is surrounded by advice from friends, colleagues, books and his own instincts. Some of it is useful, but none of it is final. The Spirit of counsel speaks through the Word, and the Word ranks every other voice.
Counsel Goes Straight to the Heart (Mark 10:19-21). Jesus quoted commandments about murder, adultery, theft, false witness and honouring parents, then added “do not defraud,” which isn’t one of the Ten. It was a pointed hint that this man’s wealth might not be as clean as his record. The man answered that he had kept all of it from his youth, and Mark records what only he records: Jesus looked at him and loved him. Then came the cut: “You lack one thing.” Sell, give, come, follow. The command targeted this man’s idol. It wasn’t a law for every believer, since Zacchaeus kept half his wealth and was declared saved (Luke 19:8-9). But the principle stands. Hebrews tells us the word of God discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12), and Proverbs says faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6). The Kingsman may shelter behind his track record, but real counsel ignores the record and finds the one thing he holds more tightly than he holds God.
Counsel Exposes What We Cannot Do Alone (Mark 10:22-27). The man’s face fell, and he went away grieving, for he had great possessions. He did not argue or storm off. He simply could not let go. Jesus turned to His disciples and said it was hard for the rich to enter the kingdom, and they were astonished. That reaction makes sense when we remember how they were raised. Deuteronomy 28 taught them that obedience brought material blessing, so a rich man looked like a favoured man. Jesus then said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. It was deliberate exaggeration, meant to make the point sting. The disciples asked, “Then who can be saved?” and Jesus answered: with man it is impossible, but not with God. The Kingsman will meet counsel he cannot carry out in his own strength, and that is by design. Grace begins where self-reliance ends, and God generously gives wisdom to the one who asks (James 1:5). The obedience God requires is the obedience He supplies.
Counsel Carries a Promise and a Price (Mark 10:28-31). Peter said, “See, we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus did not rebuke him. He promised that whoever has left home, family or fields for His sake and the gospel will receive a hundredfold now in this time: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields, “with persecutions,” and in the age to come, eternal life. The phrase “with persecutions” belongs in the sentence, because the Lord never sold discipleship as a painless exchange. The reward is real, and the opposition is real, and both arrive together. Paul counted everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ (Philippians 3:7-8), and he knew what persecution cost. Jesus closed with a line that overturns every earthly ranking: many who are first will be last, and the last first. The man who walked away saw only what the counsel would take. Peter, still learning, saw what it would give him.
The rich man had the right question, the right posture and even the Lord’s love. What he lacked was the willingness to let counsel cost him something. The Kingsman cannot treat the Spirit’s counsel as advice to weigh against his plans. He has to bring his plans to it, ask the Lord what he is clinging to, and obey while the word is still fresh, because delayed obedience quietly becomes disobedience.
A source above every other voice. A word that reaches the heart. A grace that does what we cannot. A promise that comes with its price attached. Taken together, they leave the Kingsman with a plain choice: he can keep his grip or follow the One who is looking at him with love.
That’s what it means for the Kingsman to pay attention to the Spirit of counsel.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
