Topic: What’s the Best Way to Use Your Money? [RICK WARREN Devotional 26 January 2020]
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BY RICK WARREN — JANUARY 26, 2020
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9 NIV).The best use of your money is helping people get into heaven. Jesus says, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Luke 16:9 NIV).
What is Jesus not saying here? He’s not saying you can buy your way into heaven, because you can’t. Jesus already paid that price on the cross. He’s not saying you can purchase your salvation, because you can’t. It’s free. It’s a gift. It’s by grace.
What he’s saying is to use your money to build relationships—spiritual friendships—that will go on and on for eternity. Use your affluence for good influence.
When you use your money to help other people meet Jesus, you make friends for eternity, and you gain rewards for eternity.
Imagine: One day you’re going to die. When you get to heaven, you might encounter a hundred people there, standing at the entrance to heaven, clapping and cheering and saying, “We’ve been waiting for you. We’re so glad you’ve arrived. We’re here because you spent some money to tell us the Good News. We’re your friends for life—no, eternity—because we’re in debt to you. If it weren’t for the way you used your money, we wouldn’t have heard how to get to heaven.”
Are you using any of your money to do that? Is anybody going to be in heaven because of how you chose to spend your money?
When you buy a Bible and give it to somebody who doesn’t have one, you’ve just stored up treasure in heaven. When you support a ministry that shares the Good News with people around the world, you have invested in eternity. When you help build a church that guides people toward knowing God in a personal way, you have stored up treasure in heaven.
That is the highest and best use of your money, because you’re sending it on ahead.
You can’t take it with you, but you can send it ahead to heaven. How? By investing in people who will one day be there with you.
- What is one thing you could invest in today that would have eternal results?
- Where do you currently invest most of your money? How does it compare with investing in people and their eternal future?
- How can you keep an eternal perspective each day so that you are making wise financial decisions, both big and small?