I just finished reading 1 John 2 a few minutes before I saw this cartoon. It seemed appropriate in light of John's words,
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1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
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It's funny what we value.....money, beauty, things, fame, success.....you know the list as well as I do. We value the visible and temporal. We value the stuff we can touch and hold onto. The stuff that makes us look good to others. If we could take it all with us it would make heaven as bad as it is here. Those that have it all win. Those who don't lose. The stuff is how we measure success. Success is how we feed pride. Pride and significance is what we most value. It's these things I have to counsel people about weekly. Your value as a person. Your value eternally has nothing to do with the stuff...the money, the houses, the cars, the clothes, etc. Your value is in who you are and whose you are. All this stuff is passing away. Don't value the trash and lose the treasure.
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It all means so little to God that when he's done with this world he's going to burn it all up and start over. His focus is on the people. We are what is important to him. The only eternal things on planet earth are people. They are the only things you will take with you. They are the things of value to God. If we could only value the same things God does it would change our perspective on what's of value and who's important. As Henry Brandt said, "It's not my goal in life to compare my pile of ashes to your pile of ashes." If the stuff of this world is what's important to us we are focused on ashes. "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." How could you describe what's important any better than that?
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