As Jesus was starting out on his way to Jerusalem, a man came running up to him, knelt down, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Mark 10:17

This amazed them. But Jesus said again, “Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
Mark 10:24-25

https://www.gotquestions.org/camel-eye-needle.html

• The Rich Young Ruler (RYR) comes seeking affirmation for his works, but Jesus responds with a surgical application of the Law to expose his heart's true allegiance.
• The ruler assumes eternal life is something he must earn or do. He represents the works-based mindset inherent in human religion.
• "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God." Jesus challenges the man's assumption, forcing him to consider Jesus' divinity, or at least the absolute, divine standard of goodness.
• Jesus recites a list of the Ten Commandments. The list focuses on our duty to our neighbor (murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, defrauding, honoring parents).
• The ruler responds with confidence: "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." This is the core sin—a claim to having perfectly fulfilled the uncompromising demand of God's holy Law. The Law says "Be perfect" (Matthew 5:48); the man claimed he was.
• Jesus looks at him, loves him, and gives him a unique command: "Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor... and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."
• This was not a new condition for salvation (Jesus isn't saying all Christians must be paupers).
• This was a surgical test designed to expose the first commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me" and the tenth commandment: "You shall not covet."
• Jesus forced the man to choose between his wealth (his hidden god) and the true God. The Law revealed his idolatry.
• The Law fulfilled its purpose: it convicted the self-righteous man and plunged the disciples into despair, proving that salvation is God's work alone.
• The man walked away "sad, for he was one who had great possessions." His true love was not God, but his wealth. The Law stripped away his “act” of goodness and revealed a covetous, idolatrous heart that was unwilling to submit to the King.
• Jesus comments on the difficulty of the rich entering the Kingdom. This is not because wealth is evil, but because wealth breeds self-trust (trust in one's own resources) rather than God-trust.
• Jesus uses the hyperbole of the camel through the eye of a needle. This image represents absolute human impossibility. It shows that no human effort, no matter how zealous or wealthy, can earn access to God's Kingdom.
• The disciples finally grasp the terrifying demand of the Law: "Who then can be saved?" Their question shifts the focus from the rich to everyone. If the most moral and zealous person can't earn it, then no one can.
• Jesus provides the one and only hopeful answer to the despair caused by the Law.
• Salvation is not achieved by human doing, but by God's miracle—He is the one who must save. He must change the heart that loves its idol more than Him.
• Peter, realizing the cost, mentions that they left everything to follow Him. Jesus assures them that true, sacrificial following (the only way the RYR could have been saved) results in unimaginable reward, both now and eternally.
• The lesson of the Rich Young Ruler is that the Law serves as a mirror to shatter our self-righteousness, not a ladder to climb to heaven. 
• Jesus didn't give a works-based condition.
• He gave a diagnostic tool to prove that salvation is impossible for man, and therefore, must be the exclusive, miraculous work of God alone. 

Remember….our only path to eternal life is not what we do, but what we receive through faith in Christ.