by: Russell McLaughlin

"What is really important to you?"

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

            What is really important to you? The Bible reveals what is really important for all of us in this life and the next life. In the fast pace lives that people are living today, little thought is given to the future beyond the grave.  But the Lord promises a time of reckoning for all.  “The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  (John 5: 28-29) Paul writes in Romans 14:12, “So then, everyone of us shall give account of himself to God,” and in II Corinthians 5:10, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in the body, whether it be good or bad.”

            Suppose you work hard, save, and invest in the wisest manner, suppose your wealth is more than ten million dollars.  At the moment of death, how much would you be willing to give to go to heaven?  That is the point.  How foolish to spend a lifetime acquiring “things” that are tied to this life and enter the next life empty. Remember, the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. The rich man was rich in this life and poor in the next and Lazarus was poor in this life and rich in the next.  We need to be rich toward God and live by faith. We need to live each day as if we are strangers in a foreign land, looking forward to Heaven, our true home. Let us consider Hebrews 11:13-16,

 “13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left; they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

 As the old song says:

“This world is not my home, I’m just passing thru

My treasures are laid up some where beyond

The blue: The angels beckon me from heaven’s

Open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world

Anymore.  O Lord, you know I have no friend like

You, if heaven’s not my home then Lord what will

I do; the angels beckon me from heaven’s open

Door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

            Jesus pleads with us to “lay up treasures in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:20) But do we learn? In

1 Timothy 6:7 Paul says, “we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Listen to Jesus words in Mark 8:36-38, “36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Yet we live as though we will never die; and when we die, we will wish we had never lived, because then we would give everything in exchange for our souls.  And it will be too late.  Think about it!!!

God Bless!