“How do you choose to spend your time in My kingdom? How you function while on earth impacts your function for eternity. One day the pattern for your life will be established forever. You will be able to change nothing, repent of nothing, and redo nothing from that moment on. What you have in your hands at that time will be the determined value of your life. You will be given rewards and understand loss. Now you can still be forgiven for your hardened hearts, your self-seeking motives, and your independent thinking. Then you will be exposed if you have squandered My resources that have been placed in your hands for My use.
"Come to Me to change your heart and modify your motives while you can. Embrace My reasons for purchasing you. Study to be as a waiting bride, functioning with proper insights and absolute devotion in your heart. I want you to be able to show your life to be approved. It saddens Me if you arrive on that day with empty hands and worthless trophies. You have no idea how much the pottage that you are consuming is really costing you.”
Genesis 25:29-33 NIV
29) Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.
30) He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)
31) Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
32) “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”
33) But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
Matthew 19:21 NIV
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Luke 12:19-21 NIV
19) ‘And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘
20) “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21) “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
Some of us are so short-sighted that we never make the connection that we are eternal people. It never dawns on us that we simply have different stages of life - one here and one in eternity future. In this life, our decisions determine what happens in the next portion of our lives. The major decision about where we place Jesus and the eternal implications of that decision are very clear to most of us. Somehow, though, all of the eternal implications and the impact of our other decisions and actions in this life seem to elude us.
I believe that when we get to heaven, we will not simply sit on clouds and play harps. We will be doing something, working and functioning with our very creative God. What we are given to do, I think, is determined by how faithful we were in this life. If I’m right, my every action, every moment really mean something. Possibly more than I want to know.
Even so, show me truth, Lord,
Jim Corbett
