UNFADING GLORIES!!

Luke 12:21 – “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.”

Wealth is a matter of our hope and trust in God. If our hope about all our tomorrows is with God, we will become rich in God and His matters as our priority. When God is our priority, it will be seen in the way in which we live and the goals we carry in life. But if our earthly life is our priority, we live with material posterity as our focus. When we are more concerned about our tomorrows and try to use all our energy to secure more and more means for our unknown tomorrows, we become rich in this world and poor in matters related to God. If Jesus is our treasure in life, we will get ourselves more and more enriched in matters related to Jesus. Such people might be poor in this world, but will be rich in the world to come. Jesus also wants us to understand that He is not impressed in any way by our riches in this world. Jesus wants to remind ourselves that it is not at all wise to use all our energies to store up riches in this world, but instead, we must put all our efforts to store up treasures in heaven. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich and influential man in Jerusalem and he had the riches to bury the body of Jesus in a special tomb. But he could not spend a day with Jesus or suffer with Him. Nicodemus was a learned and influential man in Jerusalem, but he was only a secret disciple who lost all opportunities to spend time with the Lord Jesus. He didn’t even dare to visit Jesus during daylight because he was afraid that he might lose his status and dignity. Today Jesus wants us to live for Him openly and spend our efforts to express our love to Him by using all our energies for Him alone.

Dear friend, are you rich in the world to come? How much are you storing up in heaven? If you ignore the fame and fortune of this world and use your energies to store up treasures in heaven, the world might call you unintelligent and thoughtless. You might become a fool in this world who is not smart enough to enrich yourself with all that will pass away. You might experience the ridicule and mockery of this world when you are not proving your efficiency and smartness by becoming successful. When the world runs after prosperity, you are called to follow an unpopular carpenter of Nazareth who didn’t even have a place to lay His head. But such people who followed Him and lived for Him are the richest people in heaven because they spent all their time, treasures and talents to earn spiritual richness. While we do that, our Lord will meet all our mundane needs to keep us going. He will open the right doors for us to get our daily bread as we serve Him. There is a guarantee that when we mind His matters, He will mind our matters. When we seek His glory, righteousness and kingdom, He will meet our daily needs. This is why we are asked to pray for His glory, kingdom and will, while we seek our daily bread. It is a walk by faith as Abraham did, warfare by faith as David did, preaching by faith as Paul did, serving by faith as Joseph and Daniel did, building by faith as Nehemiah did and assisting by faith as Timothy did. This is the life of faith taught by Jesus and practiced by the Apostles. It is the faith of our fathers and mothers who showed us the way. It is a challenge to live to please God alone in this world. When we are His, all that we have also must belong to Jesus. It is walking on Calvary Road following our Master by taking up the cross and rejecting the fame and the fortune that the world offers. It is the most fulfilling way of life on this side of eternity.

Luke 12:33 – Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.