Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God – Mark 10:18
While some have misunderstood this passage to teach that Jesus did not claim to be God, it is actually one of the brightest displays of his divinity. By demonstrating an unyielding passion for the glory of God, Jesus showed himself to be more than human and exactly like God.
If there is one root cause behind every sin, it is pride. Every human being is by nature self-centered and self-exalting. We always want people to speak well and think well of us. We hunger for the compliments and admiration of others.
Yet Jesus was the only person who has ever lived who actually deserved the praise and accolades of everyone else. Being the God-man, Jesus rightly deserves the praise and worship that should only be given to the triune God.
But we find a consistent thread throughout the life and teaching of Jesus — it was his great concern, not to garner glory and honor for himself, but to give it to his heavenly Father (and point others to do the same). This divine humility and unbending insistence on God-exaltation is one of the clearest indicators of Jesus’ deity.
Jesus, in effect, is saying to the man who called him good: "if you understood just how good God is, then you would not flippantly call any man good without a much more thorough investigation into his teaching and life."
Have you learned this unabated lesson from Jesus’ life, that all glory belongs to God? Do you point others constantly to him as the source of perfect goodness and all truth? Do you insist on His fame, rather than your own?