Good Tuesday morning! What should we imagine on this day? Hmm, how about you waiting on that important phone call. There you stand, because you are too excited to sit. You might pace back and forth a bit. You check the phone to make sure that you have dial tone, which you suddenly realize will cause the caller to get a busy signal! You quickly hang up the phone and try to wait more patiently. This call is so important! You pace out to the living room, out of reach of the phone and snap the latch to a big chain around your ankle. The chain is attached to a 16-ton safe. Now you cannot reach the phone to answer it when that call comes. Isn't that just the stupidest thing?
All of us who believe in Christ are waiting on that one call. The call that comes not by the telephone, but by our soul. The call that says, "Come up here!" Wouldn't it be stupid to be anchored to this earth when that call came?
Many things on this earth call out for our attention: money, material possessions, children, jobs, spouses, taxes, weather, and on the list goes. Some things are blessings given by God. Children are a gift from God, as is your spouse. Yes, even during those times when you don't think so. Money and material possessions can go either way. Money can be a great tool to have in your tool box, or it could be that 16-ton safe you are chained to. Material possessions can be a great tool to entertain guests in your home, or those same possessions could turn into another chain and safe. Jesus told us that not one of us can serve both God and mammon. Mammon was a Greek word that meant money and possessions. We just cannot serve both money and God at the same time.
I don't know about you, but I have found that I don't serve money very well. Money is demanding of my time and energy, difficult to obtain, and slippery in my pocket. As a tool in my toolbox, money is in its place and God makes sure that I have just enough. As a servant or tool, money is useful. As a tyrant, money is demanding and unhelpful; leaving me anxious, depressed, and watching it every moment. Possessions work in much the same way. Demanding or useful depending upon what place I give them in my life. Both money and possessions set upon a throne anchor me to this world. And when the call comes, I do not want to be anchored here!
God strengthens me to serve Him. Money never did that for me. God sent His only Son to die in my place. I could never accumulate enough money or possessions to pay the price Jesus paid for me on the cross. In fact, no coin ever minted would even be acceptable to pay the bill of my sin debt. It's like when we were kids and tried to pay for something with a slug or a wooden nickel. The store clerk would lean down and say, "I'm sorry, dear. That isn't money. You have to have a real coin to pay for this." Jesus paid the bill for our sin debt exactly. The little metal discs and pieces of paper we call money just won't work to pay that bill.
A religion might tell you that good works or a certain amount of giving is the answer to salvation. Sorry, but God wouldn't have allowed His Son to die if there had been a way to earn your way to Heaven. Jesus could have walked all over the planet proclaiming the news: You need 1,437 good and unselfish works to earn a spot in Heaven! The world wouldn't have hated him for that. In fact some of Jesus' most notorious enemies, the Pharisees, would have been all over that way to Heaven. Many religions would have been glad to know the exact number. We could even do good works by helping someone we don't know count up his good works. Nope, when the call comes down, you don't want to be anchored here trying to count up your good works.
Jesus provided the only way to God, is the only way to God, and opened up the narrow way to God by His death on the cross. Read John 3:16 and 14:6, you either believe those two statements spoken by Jesus, or you do not. Either statement throws out all other ways to God. We cannot earn the way, buy the way, or accumulate the way; we can only believe in the Way. Have a great Day!
Bucky
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