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You’ve heard the saying,”You can’t take it with you.” And as far as money and material things go, it is true. But do you know the love you have for one another will remain? When you meet your loved ones and maybe even pets. The love built over a lifetime gets extended into an eternal beginning. We’ll meet all sorts of other people in God’s kingdom from all time periods and it will be cool to make friends. Guard yourself against holding anything against people across history as we are to forgive everyone and not hold grudges, not even against accepted monsters of humanity.
You may have heard people preach:
Proverbs 19:17 “When you give to the poor, it is like lending to the Lord, and the Lord will pay you back.” (GNT).
Prosperity preachers use this out of context to say you can give to get. But they don’t see the true power of the statement. God can repay you in ways that have nothing to do about money. God might deflect attacks coming your way. God might extend your life. God might increase your health. God might bring you your spouse and guard you against bad suitors. God may make evil spirits flee from your very presence. God might guard you from disasters. God might keep your vehicles and home from decay. There are so many things God might want to repay you that are far better than money. Giving to the poor once you’re on your feet is as good or better than investing in the stock market.
Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. 21 For your heart will always be where your riches are.” (GNT).
Do you know if we’re truly blessed, God will store up our repayment in Heaven? He does this with those walking deeply in his ways. He does this for big occassions of prayerful help of others. You can never tell how God will repay your donations to allievate suffering of the poor. But you should hope that you get nothing for it in this life, and he rewards in the next life.
The rewards in the next life can be anything imaginable! You get an exhulted glorious body in the next life. Imagine if you could see more colors, hear more sounds, fly, have super strength or creative powers like God. Any fantasy is possible. Maybe you can talk to the animals, but I have the suspicion they all will talk anyway. Maybe you can be a starship captain. Maybe your mansion has a diving board from 100 stories up and you’ll always safely land in the pool. Anything you can think of will be possible so it would be best to be blessed in the next life. We can’t say for sure what will happen in Heaven, for Jesus didn’t talk a lot on it, but we can imagine anything and know Heaven will actually be better.
It is interesting that to gain much, we need to be sacrificial in our giving. And its cool if you still hold onto the idea that you gain nothing for what you give. Pure philanthropy is the spirit that gets God blessing you. They wonder in academia if there is such a thing as giving without expecting anything back, but I think many do that, and it is nice.
Give at your own abilities. Some of us won’t ever get on their feet with a house and job. God won’t judge and hold back blessings for your lack of ability to give.
Luke 13:29 “People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. 30 You see, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.” (GNT).
Those who are first in this life have all sorts of ability to give. They may even philosophically wonder,”With all this wealth, what should I do with it?” The poor can use all sorts of help. Some poor are starving to death, have bad sanitation, bad or no health care and bad education. Help them! It is noble to help.
Anyway, God is real. God loves you soooo much I can’t put it in words. Read your Bible. Pray and be good and loving. Even if you don’t have enough faith or wealth to give sacrifcially, have enough faith to be good and loving. The world would be a better place if more people tried being good and loving under Jesus.