COV LIFE BLOG

Matthew 6:19-21 The Gospel and My Possessions

The way to die daily, practically, is to hold this world with a very loose hand. Birdlime so much abounds. When a man wins a little gain in this world it sticks to him, holds him, prevents his aspiring to heavenly things and holds him bound to earth. Our dear friends, and our beloved children are all strong chains, binding our eagle-souls to the rock of earth. “Ah!” said one, as he was shown a rich man’s ample house and luxuriant gardens, “these are the things that make it hard to die.” And I suppose they are. When they are misused and wrongly applied, they birdlime us—they hold us to the soil when we would wish to mount.

Brothers and Sisters, you must not be the servants of the present. Look on your lands as a dying man would look on them. Look on your children and the comforts of your fireside, and your little savings, as so much hoar-frost to vanish in the sun. Look on your hourly cares and daily joys as on things which perish with use—mere visions of the night—things that flit at the rising of the sun. You will never enjoy earth rightly unless you know it to be a poor mutable thing! Earthliness eats as does a canker, and if you become so great a fool as to think that mortal things are eternal, or that you, yourself, will long endure, you will reserve for yourself many sorrows.

See you not how the glittering dew drops exhale as the day grows old—such and so fleeting are human joys! Mark how the meteor marks the brow of night, and soon is seen no more—such and so hasty is mortal bliss! Hold not earth’s treasures with too firm a grasp. Give them all up to your Father and use them as temporary comforts borrowed for awhile, to be returned soon. A man does not cry when he has to return a tool which he has borrowed. No, but as an honest man, he knew he borrowed it—he never called it his own—and he hands it back, thankful that he has had it so long.

You should mourn that a rebellions spirit should so reign in you as to make you lament because your God takes back His own. Gracious souls rejoice to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” To die daily, then, is to hold this world with a loose hand—and to look upon earthly possessions as fickle joys.

Christ here first teaches us how to pray, and then teaches us how really to live. He turns our thoughts from the object in life which allures and injures so many, but which is, after all, an object unworthy of our search; and he bids us seek something higher and better: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

Charles Spurgeon

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Heart Preparation
Read Matthew 16:19-21, Acts 2:24-25, and Acts 4:32-37. How important are your possessions to you? How can you steward your possessions and share them with others in a way that brings the most honor to Christ?