NOTES for Luk 8:18

More precisely, "even what he thinks he has." Jesus by no means has in mind something like the saying "money goes to money." He is speaking of relations with God to which we are not accustomed: relations of trust and respect (in the end, of love). God offers His relationship to everyone, but He forces it on no one. A person who freely accepts this gift enters an unending process of developing this relationship, whose goal is the deification of the person, the fullness of that person's entry into the life of God. But a person who thinks that everything is fine with him, that the relationship with God he thinks he has is enough for him, by that very fact closes himself off from God and does not accept from Him what God gives; and that means he breaks even the weak threads that had still kept him afloat in this life. "Take care, then, how you hear"; tune your "receivers" to the wavelength of God's grace.