LIVING FOR THE TEMPORARY OR ETERNAL

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? —Matthew 16:26

What choice would you make? If you could own the whole world and everything in it, but it would mean forfeiting your soul in Hell after you die, would you do it? Would temporarily having all this world offers be more important to you than to be with the Lord Jesus in Heaven forever? Apparently, that is the case with the majority of people and they don’t even own much of what this world offers! Still, they rather just live for the temporary life and not for the eternal life that Jesus offers.

You are more important than all the world’s treasures combined. Do you see yourself that way? Jesus did and does! Man could never offer anything that would be acceptable as payment for sin— “No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them— the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—so that they should live on forever and not see decay” (Psalm 49:7-9). How costly is it for a life to be redeemed? It took the eternal Son of God to come to this planet and pay our sin debt by sacrificing Himself on the cross, rising from the dead that “whoever calls on His Name will be saved” (Romans 10:13). May we rest in the finished work of Jesus and not focused only on the temporary things of this world!

Dear Father, thank You for redeeming me through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now may I seek to honor You by living according to Your will in the authority of Jesus and by the Holy Spirit’s power!