Why dost thou call Me good?

In the often rehearsed story of the rich young ruler, we mainly concentrate on the fact that at the end of the account the man goes away sad because he can't part with his money.  We emphasis the importance of giving up whatever stands in the way of serving Jesus.  An excellent point to make.  I am in total agreement.

Something we seldom mention is the opening exchange where the young man calls Jesus, "Good Teacher."  Jesus gives him a fairly sharp rebuke saying there is none good but God alone.  Since Jesus is God, why doesn't He just graciously accept the compliment?  Maybe Jesus sees that the young ruler is just trying to butter Him up.  Also, maybe Jesus is trying to deflect praise to His Father who sent Him.  From my perspective, Jesus is trying to tell the young man that anything good He does comes from God.  This is the exact way we as Christians should receive compliments today.  I admit compliments make me uncomfortable.  When someone says, "Great lesson" or "Good job"  I often think in my head, "It could have been so much better if I had...".  Perhaps a better track for me (and others) to take would be to deflect the praise to the Source of our work: a good and gracious God.

I am going to try to work on this in my life this next week...peace to you.