Do you like to collect things? Save stuff? Hoard everything? Hold on to material goods just in case you might need it some day? Do you strive to have electronics with the latest technology? Are you a lover of money/investments and nervously watch the DOW every morning? Or, do you see money and niceties as something you can use and enjoy, but not become attached to? Do you ever ask yourself, “Self, what will you leave?”
Question provokes thought ~
Think about it. What will you leave? There lived a very rich man who habitually dressed in royal clothes and lived in splendor every day. He feasted on the best foods; he enjoyed the praise from others for his wealth and the mansion in which he lived. He had no time for the poor. No generosity to meet another’s need. No compassion to help the sick. No thought to help others in a catastrophe.
In time, he died and was buried. He looked up from his eternal place in Hades, being in torment, and saw into heaven. “Father Abraham, please send someone to cool my tongue for I am in agony in this flame,” he pleaded. But to no avail. Abraham could not – would not – because there is a gulf between heaven and hell and no one can pass from one to the other. “Then I beg you, send someone to warn my five brothers on earth lest they also come to this place of torment!”
Abraham answered, ” They have the Law and the Prophets; let them listen to them. (Luke 16:19-31)
The rich man was worse off that the poorest creature on earth; he had needs that nobody would or could help him with; he was in torment, and not even the most brilliant surgeon could take away his pain; there was no one who had any compassion on him. This is a story with a sad and tragic ending.
Paul, a writer of the New Testament put it this way, “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” You see, Paul invested not in things or in a luxurious lifestyle, but in relationships – with God first, and people second.
A contemporary man, was well off financially. He had business associates, but no real friends or close relationships. One day, he died. After his funeral at the end of his driveway sat a box of stuff – absolutely all that was left as a physical reminder that he had spent time on earth. The sad part is that it was in a bin labeled “FREE.”
What will you leave? A box with trinkets marked “Free?” Or, will you invest in relationships that will last throughout eternity? We will all leave something. The question is, “What will you leave?” A legacy that will last or stuff that gets trashed?