"Your money or your life?" "I'm thinking it over." Attributed to comedian Jack Benny.
The story goesA traveler is resting in the night shadows when he is approached by a knife wielding man. "Give me all your money!"
"I have no money. I just have this gold brick. It's my life's savings, but I don't know what it is worth."
"I'll take it," the thief says. The next day the thief returns and says, "This brick is worth a million dollars. I can't take it from you. I will return it to you but I want one thing from you."
"What is it?" the man asks.
"Tell me what you know that makes it possible for you to give away your life's savings without a fight."
Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk" (Acts 3:6).
As Christians we are gifted with a knowledge worth much more than silver or a gold brick. We are part of something more precious than even our human being. God chose to let His son become part of us. Do we ever realize how profound that makes our relationship with God?
The Resurrected Christ is with our God in His human form, fully man, flesh and blood, bone of our bone, for all eternity. Do we ever consider what this means in our daily relationship with Jesus? One day we will enjoy that same existence.
Jesus assured us, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13). And " where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them" (Matthew 18:20). Every day Jesus lives in our hearts and wants to fill us with hope; so we have life and have it more abundantly.
We can have absolute trust in the plan Jesus has for our lives. We can listen to His words: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" (John 6:47).
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live" (John 11:25). Assured by Jesus' messages of love we travel with Him to our eternal destiny.
Our mandate is clear: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt.18-20).
