Matthew 6:19-21, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
I was thinking today about how awesome our God and Savior is! Jesus gave His life, dying on a cross to pay for our debt of sin. Jesus paid a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay. Romans 5:6-8, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I love this passage of Scripture. The Bible says some people would sacrifice their life for a godly man. Perhaps a few might sacririce their life even for a good man. But who would lay down their life for a criminal? Jesus, that's who. The Bible says that “while we were yet sinner,” meaning that even before we were born God already knew all the horrible wicked things we would do. Yet, knowing how rotten we would be, Jesus still eagerly sacrificed His life on Calvary's cross to redeem us from Hell.
God could have reasonably said in the Scriptures, that because He sent His only begotten Son to die for our sins, we owe Him. But the Lord doesn't obligate us like that. Nowhere does the Bible teach that those who have received God's free gift of eternal life are in debt, that we owe God to serve and live for Him. No, instead the Bible says in Romans 12:1 that it is “our reasonable service.” It is only proper and reasonable that a rdeemed believer should want to lay down our life as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1) to serve and live for Christ.
God could have wrote in His Word that since He made a way of escape freely available to us, that we should serve God without expectation of any reward. God could have wrote that He is not going to reward us for our service, sacrifice and a life lived in obedience to Him. Why would He, since God has already given the ultimate sacrifice of His only begotten (biological) Son.
Oh, but dear reader, not only did God the Father give us His dear Son as a sacrifice to die a cruel death on the cross (after being beaten and mocked and spat upon by thug soldiers), but God promises in His inspired Word to reward us for everything we do for Christ. Let me repeat our text passage from Matthew 6:19-21, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” I love that!
In that wonderful passage of Scripture, Jesus encourages every saint of God to lay up for ourselves treasures in Heaven, where thieves cannot steal anything, and rust never corrodes stuff. My Deering banjos continually build up tarnish on the chrome. If I don't polish the chrome a few times a year with special chrome polish, the corrosion will become permanent. I now have a leaking front tire on my car. There must be a nail in the tire. I have to put more air into the tire every week, or it will go flat. I need to get it fixed soon, so I don't end up breaking down on the roadway.
I have also been the victim of theft four times in two years where I live in West Pensacola. Punks stole my propane tank on my barbeque, which was new and cost me $79. They stole my King James Bible from my car, and two radios with the cables, and some money. They are ungodly sinners, evildoers, thieves who shed innocent blood, taking things which they did not labor for, but I did. My video camera recorded a punk stealing my Amazon package on May 10, 2024. I called the police and showed them the video. I told them that Amazon was nice enough to replace the stolen $30 clothing rack. The cop said I am not the victim then, Amazon is. I couldn't believe what he told me, which is ridiculous, because he said even if they caught the identified thief they couldn't do anything, unless Amazon pursued to prosecute him. Amazon takes in $600 billion annually and couldn't care less about perrty theft. But I need to be a bit paranoid, to take extra care to prevent more thefts from happening.
Thankfully, Jesus understands the problem (Hebrews 4:15). There were theives in Jesus' generation too! I have no doubt that thieves stole stuff from Jesus and his family. One of His own apostles, Judas, was a known thief. So, the dear Lord comforts us by assuring you and me that there are no thieves where we are going in eternity. No one will steal from us. And by the way, this means that no one will be able to steal from us during the Millennium either. Revelation 20:6 says that the saints will help reign with Jesus during His millennial reign over the earth. Jesus will rule the earth from Jersualem. He will need for us to be mayors, governors and magistrates to help Him rule "with a rod of iron" (Revelation 2:27).
I often think about what it will be like when we reign with Christ. How much power will Jesus give us? I am often frustrated by the mistreatment, unethical behavior and abuse from companies. I was falsely accused by Amazon.com of using "Hate Speech" for mentioning "The Little Rascals." Amazon has outsourced all customer relations to foreign countries. Unfortunately, the people in those third world places are woefully ignorant of American culture. So the ignorant Amazon employees in India assumed I was calling children "rascals" and falsely accused me of Hate Speech. I ignored the first notice, because it was ridiculous. But Amazons ent it a second time, and then a third, threatening to terminate my account if I continued using "Hate Speech."
So, I got upset and told them off using harsh words. I later regretted doing that when they banned me from writing any future product reviews. I apologized several times, and even mailed an apology letter to Amazon Headquarters in Washington state on Westlake Avenue. Amazon refused to forgive me, and won't let me review any future product purcahses. I received another notification letting me know that I cannot write reviews ever again. Amazon is so unethical. I laid the ax to the root in a final correpondance to Amazon, reminding them of Jesus' warning in matthew 7:1-2, that God will judge everyone by the same standard by which they judge others. Since Amazon refuses to forgive me, God won't forgive them either!
I have found thousands of complaints online by other abused Amazon customers. One man was a loyal Amazon cutomer for 20 years, a small business owner, but they also unethically banned him from writing any future product reviews. The guy's feelings were hurt, that his 20 years of loyalty as a customer means ZERO to management at Amazon. The truth is that for some insane reason Amazon corporate headquarters has given complete autonomy to some fools in India to handle their Community Standards Department, and those foreigners are woefully ignorant and incompetent.
So, I opened a new account and abandoned the old one, deciding that I will NEVER write another product review for Amazon, since the same fools who abused me are the same fools still handling all reviews. Shame on Amazon the first time, I won't allow a second time to be abused by Amazon's shady policies and terrible employees overseas. I honestly believe that their outsourced foreign employees are using Reverse Discrimnation and hate Americans, so they enjoy harassing Americans because they simply can. Why else would they be so belligerent? SHAME on Amazon's owner Jeff Bezos and managment for allowing this abuse! Bezos has a net worth of $211,000,000,000, so he couldn't care less. Thankfully, there is a caring God in Heaven who sees everything, to whom we must all give acount one day (Hebrews 4:13). God is partial toward His children (Matthew 18:6).
Having said all that, I humbly believe that during the Millennium that this type of unethical company behavior, abuse and lack of concern for mistreated customers won't be swept unfer the rug as it is today. If the Lord gives me total pwoer as a ruler, I will declare war on shady and uncaring companies. I will severely punish dishnoest taxi drivers. I will put companies out of business who cheat and hurt customers, not merely fine them. I would eliminate all fine print in contracts which are intended to mislead and hurt consumers. By law I would not allow companies to advertise in any larger text than they write their disclaimers. I am so sick of the unethical practice of companies advertising in giant colorful font, but then you can barely read all the legal jargon that later is used to hurt you in court. That is so unethical.
I could go on for hours about all the changes I would make, if I were a king or had absolute power. I am so sick of shady companies like Alamo car rental, Priceline and other wicked companies. Alamo on the Big Island in Hawaii charged me a penalty for returning a rent car 5 minutes late, but I wasn't late. I had parked the car in the return stall at 10:05 am. But I cleaned the car and by the time I gathered my belongings and walked down to the check-in counter, it was 10:35 am. Alamo are greedy.
On another occasion, in Pensaocla, I rented a car for 3 days. But I later needed it for one more day. When I called the number on my contract to extend my rental for one more day, the belligerent woman on the phone at Alamo said I had to pay for 7 days! She said I had entered into a "weekly rate," which was so unethical and shady. I refused and went elsewhere! Alamo wasted my time, ran me around needlessly and tried to financially gouge me. Jerks!
I could tell you hundreds of things that are extremely unethical today. I'll give you one more. If you type "professional banjo" in a search engine, you'll get hundreds of lying websites that will recommend $199 banjos which are cheap Chinese importated garbage. At the bottom of every webpage you will find a shady disclaimer that says they are getting compensated with financial kickbacks for recommending products. What they're really saying is that they are intentionally lying to you, but it's okay to lie in their world since they are telling you upfront what they are horribly doing. That is so wicked and unethical. If I had the power, I would ban such shady beahvior. I hope one day in the Millennium that the Lord gives me absolute power to go after companies. I will help the Lord rule "with a rod of iron."
Dear reader, we serve such a wonderful, amazing and ethical God. Do you know that God is going to reward His saints for even giving a cup of water in Jesus' name? Mark 9:41, “For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” What an awesome Savior!!! The Lord could have said, “Look, you were going to Hell forever, but I suffered in your place and paid your massive debt of sin, so that you could escape wrath and live. Now you owe me and I expect you to work hard to show your appreciation for what I did for you, but don't expect any rewards from me in eternity.” Truthfully, God would have every right to say that, wouldn't He? It would not be unreasonable for God to say such a thing to His children.
But dear friend, our wonderful God and Savior says that we don't owe Him anything. Eternal life is a “free gift” (Romans 5:15-18). Ephesians 2:8-9 says that eternal life is a “gift.” Romans 6:23 says eternal life is a “gift.” Yet, thousands of lying preachers today insist that to get to Heaven, YOU must first be willing to forsake your sinful bad habits, and they foolishly think this is what it means to “repent.” Bible “repentance” means “to think differently” (Greek verb: metanoeo). Whoever said that repentance means to forsake your sinning is a LIAR!!!
God offers every sinner eternal life as a FREE GIFT, which you simply need to TAKE. Simply by faith receive Christ's sacrifice on the cross as full-payment for your sins, believing that He was buried, but then physically resurrected from the dead. This is the “Gospel” (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). We are saved by BELIEVING the Gospel, the GOOD NEWS of Jesus crucified, buried and risen.
I just wanted to share my thoughts this morning with you. God is so beautiful. Since I work night and day on my blog and website ministry, I often think of the rewards I am laying up in Heaven. While the heathen world is laying up money for their retirement here on earth, trying to amass a large fortune, I couldn't care less about laying up treasures on earth, just for some thieving lawyers to take away someday. I hate lawyers by the way! Jesus warned us about lawyers. Luke 11:46, “And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” The Lord sure knew what He was talking about! Most lawyers are predators.
God not only offers everyone salvation for FREE, since Jesus paid for it with His precious blood (1st Peter 1:18-19), but God also encourages all believers to earn rewards in Heaven, treasuring up wealth for eternity (1st Corinthians 3:8-9). I love how faithful, loving, generous, caring, fair and ethical the good Lord is!!! He not only saves us for free, just for the taking; but He encourages us to earn rewards, which Christ promises to give those who serve Him for the Gospel's sake. God will someday generously reward me for every mouse-click, every stroke of my computer's keyboard, every penny that I give to a poor person, every good deed, for everything done for Jesus' sake and the Kingdom of God. What a wonderful Savior!!!
Life is so short, make sure you are prepared to meet your Creator.
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