Friday, June 28, 2013

6/28/13:

TFTD: "And a ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"…When Jesus hear this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich." Luke 18:18-23

What can we do to inherit eternal life? In the story a man with some wealth comes to Jesus and says how do I go to heaven? Jesus says well follow the 10 commandments. The ruler has the guts to fool himself that he has followed them. So Jesus takes a more personal route to this guy. Go and sell all of your things, give them to the poor and follow me. In society today people follow the common quote of "he who dies with the most things wins". As fun and empty as that may be it really just comes down to he who dies with the most stuff, dies with a lot of crap. We don't get to take anything with us to heaven. No motorcycles, PS3's, TV's, money, nothing, we take nothing. Which is kind of a bummer because I like some of my things. The point here is that we can use our things to help serve others instead. I have a friend of mine who has taken this story very personally and is doing an awesome thing. She is in the process of selling her house and a lot of her things to go and do mission work in Africa. She has this awesome perspective of service which I can only hope to emulate even a little bit.
            I read on a napkin from Caribou Coffee once that life is about buying someone a cup of coffee. Now I don’t know about you but I am a recent graduate from college. That means I am broke, but one of my joys is doing little things for others. Whether I tip well, or buy someone coffee, I can just see a glimpse of what it must have been like to sell all of your things to take up the cross and follow Christ. Now, I don’t expect you to go and sell all of your things like my friend is doing, but maybe share a cup of coffee or a lunch with someone. Its kind of fun and you might just get addicted.


"Success is not measured by what you do compared to what others do; it is measured by what you do with the ability (or funds) God gave you."- Zig Ziglar (parenthesis mine)

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