Matthew 19:20

‘The young man says to him, “All these things have I observed. What do I still lack?” '

However, the young man is now disappointed. He had had such high hopes. But all that Jesus had told him was what he had heard before from others. And yet it had not been enough. He did not stop to consider whether he had genuinely kept all these commandments (and Matthew intends us to read them in terms of the sermon on the mount). With the presumption and limited experience of a young man he was convinced that he had. And yet he knew that what he had done was not enough. He was still aware of a great lack. There was still hope for him, for at least he recognised that he was not good enough. (Once a man begins to think that he is nearly good enough, and has but a little further to go, he has lost hope. For the first principle of salvation is that a man recognise his own total inability to be good enough. That indeed was why Jesus had begun by emphasising that true goodness was of God).