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Time is deceptive.

When we are young, we think we have all the time in the world.

We think we have time to make money, to have a family, to have a career that will make everyone jealous (like Hillary in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) And then, maybe later, to do something we love, to give back and to serve God.

But, do you see the problem with this list that most people find standard? God is at the bottom, towards the end, and in the “maybe” category of wishful thinking.

But God wants commitment from us. Like a marriage, God doesn’t want us to go into a relationship with him half-heartedly with the promise of someday I’ll do something for you.

The thing is, we are never promised “someday”, or even a tomorrow.

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” (James 4:14 NLT)

Life is painfully short. And for the young, we need to realize this **now**, before we run out of time.

Society tells us to make money, have a cute house with a white-picket fence (OK, pot-kettle, I have one of these), a dog, kids, a massive-marketed up Christmas, and enough money to retire early and that’s how you will be satisfied with your life.

I don’t think Jesus would have agreed with this popular opinion, considering he asked one man in particular to sell everything he had to follow him (Mark 10:17-27). And he also gave multiple parables about people giving up all they had to inherit the kingdom of God (Matthew 13:44-46).

Jesus even comes out and says it in the book of Luke:

“What a fool you are to trust in your riches and not in me. This very night the messengers of death are demanding to take your life. Then who will get all the wealth you have stored up for yourself?” (Luke 12:20)

Or another verse some can probably quote:

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)

In the Old Testament, there was a man who tried it all: riches, hard work, women, he was even a king – the wisest king whoever walked the earth (Solomon).

And at the end of the day, he said everything, everything, is meaningless without God.

All of your hard work, all of the money in your savings, stock, or retirement accounts, your love life, your friends, anything and everything we find to be valuable – it’s all worthless without God.

Jesus said quite strongly, “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.”

Why is this such an important concept for me, you and the rest of our generation?

Because one day we will run out of time.

And what will our lives be worth?

I pity the pharaohs. They had great wealth, great power . . . and they ended up dead in a pyramid where tomb raiders would steal. They thought if they were buried right, and if they were buried with possessions (everything from gold to dead slaves), then they’d be OK in the afterlife . . . But they were wrong.

There was a rich man in one of Jesus’s parables who lived in luxury every day, but when he died, he ended up tormented in hell (Luke 16:19-23). And another man, Lazarus (who was given a name, but the rich man was not), was poor all of his earthly life and ended up in heaven with father Abraham.

At the end of the day, money doesn’t matter. Like the gold of the pharaohs, they didn’t offer any comfort in the afterlife for them.

Jesus says it like this:

“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:20)

So, how do we store up treasures in heaven? Well, it’s not getting a big house or setting your life up to be wealthy in the material world.

It’s putting Jesus at the top of your list, living a life in complete surrender to his will and on his mission, and leading a life that imitates his.

For more details . . .

read the book of James for practical faith and living

read the book of John to learn how Jesus walked and how he lived or any of the other gospels

read the letters of Paul to the churches or the ones from Peter or John to learn what daily Christian living looks like

read the Old Testament where there are many examples of heroes in the faith who chose to serve God instead of the ideals of society and persevered.

The Word of God is a living treasure that God gave to us so we can store up treasures of our own in heaven, the ones that last forever, with the time he does give us. And while we do so, we bring glory to his name and others on God’s greatest mission of all time – to save the world.

Use your time wisely and use it to serve God. I can promise you that eternal rewards last a LOT longer than the ones that fade on the earth.

We only have so much time.

Copyright © 2020 by Melody Turner @ https://honest-maybe-relatable.com/2020/07/01/the-lies-of-tomorrow/. Used with permission. No part of this article may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from Lifeword.org.