Borrowed Life
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
- Colossians 3:2
Look around you. If you’re at home, you’re surrounded by your belongings. If you bought a house, you consider that house yours. That car sitting in the driveway is yours because, like your house - and everything in it - you paid for it. You {or your parents, spouse, guardian} work to buy life’s necessities.
But…how much of what you have is REALLY yours?
It’s not a trick question. I’m not talking about things you bought by taking out a loan or on credit {technically, if you pay a mortgage, car note, or towards a credit card balance, you don’t own those things outright}. You’re probably thinking, “Hello! Yes, I own the things I bought with MY money that I earned!”
No, you don’t. The truth is, none of us own anything. We, like everyone who has lived or ever will live, came into this world with nothing. When our time on this earth ends, what do we get to take with us? Nothing. Everything we accumulate on this earth stays here after we’re gone. Even “our” bodies. Everything we have - our bodies, family, friends, possessions - are borrowed.
We only take our love, memories, and knowledge with us, but even our love comes with a condition: that we go to Heaven. If we wind up in hell, our love gets stripped away and replaced with hatred and misery.
It’s important to remember that everything we have is borrowed and that our focus must be on what is meaningful. If we and everyone else we love go to Heaven, we will continue to cultivate those loving bonds in the presence of Jesus, our Almighty Father, the Old/New Testament Saints, the Angels, every family member who passed away long before our lives began, and our pets.
With that in mind, doesn’t it make more sense, knowing that God tells us to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength? And to love our neighbor as ourselves? Does He not tell us that “faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love”? {1 Corinthians 13:13}
Loving God and one another is more important than anything on earth because, in Heaven, we will experience love as we’ve never experienced it before. Everything we once owned in our lives on earth will be but a distant memory. Everything we stressed or felt anxious about will mean nothing in comparison to the glory of being with Jesus for eternity in our Heavenly Home.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matthew 6:19-21
If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider sharing it with anyone you think might enjoy it, too. God Bless!