Investing for Eternity

Chuckle: "Why do you press harder on the remote control buttons when you know the battery is dead?"

Quote: "Only the wages of sin have no deductions." --Ellis C. Galt

"The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden" (1 Timothy 5:24-25 NIV).

Some people seem to live by the code: "as long as I don't get caught, anything I want to do is alright and justifiable." In other words, if we can keep our sins hidden, we can avoid the consequences thereof. I can understand how a non-believer, who does not think he will answer to God, could entertain such erroneous thoughts. I feel certain that sometime in our lives each of us has committed a wrong that we would not have committed if we knew it would be made known. Sometimes, we Christians need to be reminded that nothing can be hidden from God.

But from our passage, we are reminded that many live sinful lives whose transgressions are out in the open and obvious. Our sins may be obvious to men and precede us to the place of judgment or they may trail behind us out of sight and become known only when we stand before God. But whether obvious or hidden, "Be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23). Of course, the worst hidden sin is the sin of unbelief. Someone may claim to be a Christian and do many "Christian things," but hidden beneath the facade may be a unrepentant and unredeemed sinful heart.

We cannot afford to take sin lightly. God certainly doesn't. We must first deal with it through repentance and confession leading to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. A precious truth is that once our sin has been dealt with through the blood of Christ we need not fear meeting it again when we face judgment (1 John 1:7, 9).

Not only do our sins precede or follow us, unless dealt with in this life, but so do our good deeds. Sometimes our good deeds are obvious and apparent to others. But those done quietly behind the scene, to glorify God, will not go unnoticed by God (Matthew 6:3-4). Our good deeds should result from our relationship with Jesus Christ, not as a means to earn our way into God's favor. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10 NIV). Rather than depleting our spiritual account through sin, we can invest in it through good deeds that will bring eternal dividends. Remember Galatians 6:7: "A man reaps what he sows."

Love, Jerry & Dotse