Let Us Make “Money Belts Which Do Not Wear Out”
My hands stretched out in front of me (mummy style), and I stumbled around in the dark moving this way and that way. ‘Where is the door!!’ My 10-year-old head cried as my bladder felt it might burst.
As a child growing up in Indiana, I was given the opportunity to sleep upstairs in the back bedroom, the room where we circled around the chimney and shared a larger bedroom space. Yet, this large room had its challenges. For one, it sits inside a farmhouse in northern Indiana, so the cold winter wind seems to constantly blow a chill over the land.
Since it’s so cold, my sister and I shared a bed upstairs (during the winter); then, in the warmer seasons, we enjoyed the pleasure of separating into our own bedrooms. See the cold, dark, back bedroom—-the one so far away from our single toilet, downstairs and far away from us. For a ten-year-old, the walk from the bed to the bedroom doorway, around the chimney, down the steps, across the formal living room, and down the hallway—-to the toilet—-SEEMED FOREVER LONG, when your bladder is screaming “RELEASE. NOW!!!!!”
It is there, in the permeating darkness of that bedroom and in the season of childhood that we need to pause to see a truth found within God’s Word—-
[We (God’s little children) need to] “sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
(Luke 12: 33-34)
Verbs of Action.
Words that Give our Bodies Wings.
Sell.
Give.
Make.
“An unfailing treasure in heaven”
“Where no thief comes near”
“nor moth destroys”
Our Treasure’s Location = Our Father’s Salvation, Our Eternity with God.
God does not want His children to wander around in the dark, mummified, stumbling, as if they cannot find the doorway.
NO. That’s how we walked when we were Lost—BEFORE WE WERE HIS (GOD’S)!
God does not want His children to search for the passageway for relief, continually searching and wondering to ourselves, “Am I on the right path?”
NO. That’s how we walked when we were Lost—BEFORE WE WERE HIS (GOD’S)!
Do not ever believe me but always believe God’s Word.
James, who referred to himself as “a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” was inspired by God to write—
“You adulteress, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?
(James 4: 4- 8)
Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’?
But he gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.’
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
When I was a child living in Indiana, lost in the dark, stumbling into the four walls that created my shared bedroom, crying inside for relief, dying (to pee), and knowing that I must find the doorway and locate it quickly.
I knew the Truth.
The Doorway Was Positioned Directly Adjacent to the Light Switch.
Find the Doorway = Find the Light = Find the Way.
The analogy of my childhood:
To reflect the darkness of the devil.
To show how the devil works against God’s children.
To remind us how the devil seeks to steal our witness and our joy.
Well, maybe it just Seems Silly, but we must be serious in our walk with God.
“Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
(1 John 3: 7-10)
No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in Him; and he cannot sin [cannot remain in sin], because he is born of God.
By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
- Let us walk with God.
- Let us not stumble through this (our one earthly life), but let us be lead by the Savior, walking toward the One who stands at the doorway, Knocking, Seeking, & Offering His saving grace.
- Let us be serious in our Christianity.
- Let us live within God’s righteousness.
- Let us remember the devil roams and seeks and devours…..even us, the children of God as he steals our witness and our joy.
- Let us remember the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.
- Let us remember Jesus will come again.
- Let us be serious, dedicated, & focused in doing the will of our Father.
- Let us “make money belts which do not wear out” as we store “an unfailing treasure in heaven.”