Sunday, May 10, 2009

Demand #36: Lay Up For Yourselves Treasures In Heaven And Increase Your Joy In Jesus

How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. — Luke 18:24-25

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? — Luke 16:10-12


Excerpts from the book:

Page 274 - Emerging in the previous chapter were two controversial claims that I will try to support from Jesus’ teaching in this chapter. First, the claim that a selfish spirit will keep us out of heaven. Second, the claim that there are degrees of reward, or degrees of joy, in heaven, depending on how sacrificially generous we were on earth. First, Jesus implies, again and again, that a selfish spirit will keep us out of heaven. Here are five examples to show this truth.

Page 274 - The Rich Ruler and Eternal life: First, when the rich ruler asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus responded......

Page 275 - The Rich Man, the Beggar, and Two Destinies: A second example is the story of the rich man and the beggar at his gate. Jesus said.....

Page 276 - Failure to Love and Final Judgment: Third, similarly, in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus warns that a professing follower of Jesus who is indifferent to the needs of the poor will endure “eternal punishment.”...

Page 276 - The Rich Fool Who Loses His Soul: Fourth, again Jesus tells a parable of a rich fool. The man’s fields prosper, and he has more than he can use. Instead of thinking generously he says.....

Page 276 - How to Lose True and Lasting Riches: Fifth, here is one last illustration of how a selfish spirit keeps us out of heaven. After the parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-9), Jesus draws out these conclusions:.....

Page 277 - It is fairly clear that “true riches” and “that which is your own” refer to the treasures of heaven—the pleasures of the age to come when we enjoy unbroken fellowship with Jesus. Therefore, Jesus is saying that we will not get these true riches if we have not been faithful with
what we were given to use in this fallen world.

Page 277 - The Ground of Our Acceptance with God: That is one implication of what I said in the first sentence of this chapter: A selfish spirit will keep us out of heaven entirely. I hope it is plain by now in this book that I do not believe a sacrificially generous spirit is the ground of our acceptance with God. When Jesus says that a selfish spirit keeps us out of heaven, he does not mean that God watches to see if we show ourselves to be generous before he accepts us into his everlasting favor.

Page 278 - Greater Sacrifices of Love Lead to Greater Joy in Heaven: The other controversial claim emerging in the previous chapter and mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter is that the degree to which we overcome our selfishness determines, in some measure, the degree of our reward—our joy—in heaven. The more sacrificially generous you are on earth, the greater will be your enjoyment of heaven. The first indication that Jesus means this is found....

Page 279 - The Measure You Use Will Be Used to Measure You: Another indication that Jesus thinks this way about heaven is the way he speaks in Luke 6:37-38:....

Page 279 - First, he confirms what we saw before, that a selfish spirit will rob us of all blessing: “Give, and it will be given to you.” He is not speaking of mere human relations here. He is speaking of the final reckoning with God.

Page 280 - The point I am stressing here is that there are differences in the fullness of delight that each of us enjoys in heaven. Each will be full in heaven, for there are no frustrations there. But the fullness of each will not be the same since the measure that we used to bless others on earth, and that God will use to bless us in heaven, are different for different people.

Page 280 - We will see in the next chapter that this kind of sacrificial generosity is grounded in the goodness of God to us before and while we are generous to others. We are able to love and give because he has already given freely to us and promises to meet every need we have in a lifetime of generosity (Matt. 6:33; 7:7-12; Luke 12:32).

To that end.....

God Bless

(see links on right to download a free copy of the book)

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