Eternal benefits for eternity

We are in a season of emphasis in our church family where we are highlighting giving and pledging and doing everything we can to relocate our church to another campus.

God is good. I am thankful for the pledges that are coming in - in advance.

Here's what I am learning.

The biggest misconception Christians have about giving is that when we give our money away to a church or ministry, or to help those who are poor and needy, it's gone.

We hope that we are going to benefit from it, but deep down inside we believe that we won't.

We think that we are (and to quote Randy Alcorn) that we are "divesting ourselves of money, disassociating from it. Once it leaves our hands, we imagine, it has not connection to us, no future implications relevant to our lives."

I would suggest that we couldn't be more off target.

We are not "divesting" ourselves of our money but "investing" into the kingdom and heaven itself.

Here's what Randy Alcorn shares, and it's a principle I don't think we realize:

"We are not to be motivated primarily by earthly power, possessions, and pleasures, yet we are offered all three in heaven if we invest now in God's kingdom."

This principle can be difficult to wrap our churchanized minds around because our fleshly nature has tainted the words pleasures, possessions and power on this planet.

But in eternity we will be able to manage these things rightly, as Jesus did, because we will be without sin.

God is a "rewarder" of them who diligently seek Him."

In heaven, we will have power (responsibility) to rule and to reign with Christ.
In heaven, we will have possessions in that Jesus himself said that he's "gone there to prepare a place for us."
In heaven, we will have pleasures, the pleasure of being in the presence of God.

I want to make sure that my investment here, now, will have eternal benefits for eternity.

How about you?