One of the greatest gifts God gave man is the ability to choose. We make thousands of choices in a day. Some of then as simple as whether to eat is not, drink water or cola and some are done within a split second.
There are other more fundamental choices like location of property we want to settle into, life partner, course if study, career to pursue, etc on which we spend a lot of time in arriving at a decision as some of these could be irreversible.
A ruler wanted to know from Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. The straight answer would have been " believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved" but Jesus knew the mind of the ruler.
Jesus knew that the Jews believed they would go to heaven by keeping all the laws. Could anyone keep all? Well, this ruler claimed he had kept all the "do not" since he was a young man. What he failed to realize was that the commandments do not just stop at the don'ts: what about the do's? This is where he failed woefully and left in sorrow, because he loved his possessions far above eternal life.
What if you have to choose between your pursuit of possessions and the race for eternal life? Would you rather lose that contract than bribe your way through and lose the opportunity to stand up for Christ? In our race for eternal life, we must live holy lives.
Every choice has a reward and then with consequences either positive or negative.