What Are You Taking With You?

No More Delay: What Are You Waiting For | Day 14

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21, NIV

A glad good morning to you. Most of us have stood over an open suitcase the night before a trip, sorting a pile on the bed into what actually needs to go and what can stay behind. The rule sorts itself out fast. If it will not fit, will not survive the trip, or will not matter once we arrive, it stays home. Every one of us is packing for a trip none of us gets to skip, and this is a good morning to open that suitcase honestly.

What Does Not Make the Trip

Jesus already told us what belongs in it and what does not. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21, NIV). Notice what he names as the danger. Not wealth itself, but where our heart settles because of it. A moth does not care how carefully we folded the sweater. A thief does not check whether we earned what he is taking. Everything stored only on this side of the trip was always temporary, no matter how carefully we guarded it.

Paul told Timothy the same truth from the far end of a full life. "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." (1 Timothy 6:6-8, NIV). We arrived with empty hands, and we leave with empty hands. Everything in between was loaned, not owned, however solid it felt while we were holding it.

The psalmist puts the same comfort in front of us so that we are not tempted to measure our worth by someone else's pile. "Do not be overawed when others grow rich, when the splendor of their houses increases; for they will take nothing with them when they die, their splendor will not descend with them." (Psalm 49:16-17, NIV). We can let that settle a striving heart. Whatever gap we feel between our life and someone else's closes completely the moment either of us reaches that door.

There is a temptation worth naming plainly, and only once. We build as though the building will last. We plan as though comfort, career, or the people we love most were permanent fixtures rather than gifts held for a season. Jesus told a story about a man who fell into exactly that trap, one good harvest away from tearing down barns to build bigger ones. "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' 'This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.'" (Luke 12:20-21, NIV). That warning was never written to frighten us into hoarding grace instead of grain. It was written to loosen a grip most of us did not realize had closed. Whatever we have quietly treated as ours to keep, Christ has already forgiven the holding on, and he is not asking us to feel guilty over a suitcase. He is asking us to pack it well.

The Inheritance That Was Never Ours to Carry

Here is where the relief actually arrives, because Paul does not tell us to earn a place in heaven by learning to travel light. He tells us we are already there in the way that matters most. "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:1-4, NIV). Notice the order. We are told to set our hearts on things above only after we are told we have already been raised. The instruction follows the gift. We do not lighten our load to become his. We lighten our load because we already are.

That changes how we think about the people sitting across our own tables. The most loving thing we do for them is not leaving behind a bigger inheritance. It is pointing them, plainly and while there is still time, to the one inheritance that survives the trip. Everything else we might leave them, comfort, money, a good name, none of it makes the same journey they will one day have to make themselves.

So what are we taking with us? Not the treasures we packed so carefully. Not the splendor others admired. Not the earthly security we worked so hard to build. We take nothing in our hands. But in Christ, we lack nothing. The treasure that matters most was never ours to carry. It is already kept for us. Our life is hidden with Christ. Our inheritance is safe. Our Savior is risen. And because he is our life, we can travel lightly through this world with full hearts, open hands, and joyful confidence in the treasure that will never be taken away.

All of this rests on Jesus Christ, who did not simply teach us what to pack. He is the one who secured what we are packing toward. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you," (1 Peter 1:3-4, NIV). Jesus Christ rose so that hope would not be one more thing we lose along the way. He is keeping the one inheritance that moths cannot touch and thieves cannot reach, and he is keeping it for us, not because we packed wisely, but because he already carried everything that mattered on our behalf.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for rising so that my hope would never perish, spoil, or fade the way everything else in this life eventually does. Forgive me for the mornings I have gripped something you only ever meant for me to hold loosely, and thank you for loosening my hand instead of scolding it.

Heavenly Father, keep my heart set on what is above, not because I earned a place there but because you have already raised me with Christ. Give me courage to point the people I love toward you while there is still time, and let me travel light today, trusting that the inheritance you are keeping for me needs nothing added by my own hands. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Zip the suitcase and set it by the door. Whatever you leave out of it was never going to make the trip anyway, and what you carry instead was packed by someone who has already gone ahead of you to make sure it arrives safely. Tomorrow the mirror turns fully toward us, and we ask an honest question about our own footing, one this whole series has been quietly building toward.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

If you received this message and are not on the daily distribution for them via text or know someone you would like to share these messages with, just have them text "add" to 833-779-8793.