IT'S ALL GONNA BURN

Everything you currently own will eventually belong to someone else. Someone else will drive your car when you're gone. Someone else will wear your clothes when you're dead. Someone else will live in your house when you have passed away.

"...Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." (1 Timothy 6:6-8)

What does it mean to be content in our society? Thanks to the power of advertising and marketing, it's quickly becoming a lost art. Commercials urge us to be discontent with the things we own and to pursue the newest item on the market. Everywhere we turn we are told that we can never really be fully happy unless we own the latest gadget or drive the latest car or wear the coolest fashions.

Sometimes we need to be reminded of what really matters in life. Often, those wake up calls can be quite painful. Maybe we lose our job, or we have to move, or someone we love gets hurt, or is diagnosed with cancer, or our marriage hits the rocks, or our children turn to drugs. In those moments we wake up and realize that our stuff is worthless and all that matters is how much we need God.

I think this is why Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God and not to worry about clothes, or food, or houses, or any of the other things that the pagans spend their lives to attain. God loves us. He's watching us. God knows our needs before we ask. He wants us to focus on His Kingdom and on having a good relationship with Him.

Recently, after a rather large wildfire here in Orange County destroyed several homes, a local news crew interviewed a woman who stood in the smoldering ashes of her former house alongside her husband and children. They extended the microphone under her nose and asked, "Can you tell us how you feel after having lost so much?" The woman looked into the camera and said, "I can't really think about what I've lost. All I can see is what I've gained."

The reporter wasn't expecting this so she asked, "What do you mean? What have you gained?" The woman replied, "I've gained a greater faith in God, I've gained a greater sense of community with my neighbors here on this street, I've gained a greater appreciation for my children and a love for my husband. When I count all of that, what I've lost doesn't seem like so much."

As Paul says, "...we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it". How often do we forget that obvious truth? How often do we live our lives as if our joy and our happiness depended on seeing the latest film or attending the coolest party or owning the hippest technology? Too often.

The Kingdom of this World is passing away. The Kingdoms of Pleasure and Entertainment and Fashion and Vanity are all soon to fade into Eternity. Jesus urges us to look up, to lift our heads and to realize that this blip of life here is soon to give way to an endless life in the presence of God Himself.

Start living for God's Kingdom today. Start investing in the values of His Kingdom where forgiveness and mercy and love and compassion are most important.

-kg