Dead Weight

Now I don't know, but I been told it's hard to run with the weight of gold,

Other hand I have heard it said, it's just as hard with the weight of lead.

Grateful Dead - "New Speedway Boogie"

Weight is weight, especially as you deal with material things in terms of the spiritual realm. Whatever stuff I am carrying around in this world, chances are I am hauling a lot of dead weight as I approach the next. 

It turns out that most of what we value in this life is ultimately of no value. You cannot take it with you, all you can do is leave it to others who can't take it along either. It is ultimately useless.(Unless you leave to people to use in a way that brings the people, not the stuff, into the next life. But that as they say, is another story for another day). And if it is useless, it all weighs the same, it is all way too much.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 12:32-34 (NASB)

As usual, God's word sums things up very well. Our treasure is where our heart is. If it is hauling dead weight, our heart will tend to be dead to the things that really matter. 

I have spent too much time in the past hauling trash around in my life. Sad to say, I still do a good deal of it. Hopefully not as much, not as much.

That is where the grace of God comes in. He hauled the Cross so I would not have to worry able hauling dead weight. For without Him, that's all everything else is.

How Are You Living Your Life

Dr. Ken Boa, in his Handbook To Spiritual Growth, compares our lives here on earth to eternity in the following way. A man is planning on moving from Dallas to Atlanta to live the remaining 50 years of his life. He plans every detail of the two day drive; where he will eat, sleep, stop for gas. But he has no clue as to what he will do for the remaining 50 years. Sounds ridiculous, but the point that life here on earth and eternal life are the same way. We plan the details of a short life here, trying to control it all (there is that control thing again) yet let the eternal consequences slide, pushed back in our minds because we do not want to think of death in this life, even if it means life eternal in the next. But at that point, the consequences of our choice are irrevocable, so make the right one now. Accept Jesus as the Savior of your life, the only way to your eternal salvation.

We are all going to live forever in eternity. That is not the question.

The question is where.

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