You Can't Take It With You

You hear the phrase often, "You can't take it with you," and it is true, we leave this world just as empty handed as we come into it. But if you could take something with you into the next world, you would want to, wouldn't you?

I heard someone in church say tonight, "There are only two eternal things we touch in this life. . .other people and the Word of God."

The relationships we have with other people and our relationship with the Lord through the Scriptures carry over into our eternal lives.  If we have not entered into a relationship with the Lord, then we will know an eternal existence of pain and suffering in the lake of fire:

"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."  Revelation 20:15

If however, we have entered into a relationship by faith with the Lord Jesus Christ, we will have life everlasting.  In that life we will never again know hunger or thirst, sorrow or pain. 

We will also know all of those with whom we have made relationships here on earth who also know the Lord Jesus Christ.  Those relationships forged here will continue there for we are all part of one body of whom Christ is our Head.  Those relationships are something we can "take with us."

We can also take with us the knowledge of the Lord we have gained through His Word.  This is because we do not gain this by our own intelligence or diligence at studying, but by the illumination of the Holy Spirit who lives within our spirits.  The Lord Jesus told us that when the Comforter was to come He would "teach you all things."  That teaching is not primarily in our brains, but in our spirits, where His Spirit reveals the truths of God to us.  These are things we can "take with us."

So since there are things we can "take with us," let us focus our time on those things which are eternal.  Those things which are temporal, which fade away, let them fade, and let us value that which has eternal value.  As I have heard, "Only God and people are eternal, every thing else is just stuff."

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:  for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  Matthew :20,21