HANGING ON FOR MONEY ----- I once was in a church that had quite a few people who were very wealthy. Many of the members were older ladies who were widows who had outlived most of their peers and for one reason or another had in their possession a vast amount of wealth. Now, when you have a situation where you have wealthy folks whose days are numbered, there tends to be another group of people who appear – these are people who like the wealth of those whose days are numbered – let’s call them – relatives.
The relatives would be where ever one of these widows would be – they would never miss a birthday, always spend every holiday with her, and they would make sure they were with her in church every Sunday – if this sounds sweet to you, then you are deceived, like I was when I first came to town. The longer I was around, the more complaints I heard: The older women would despair that they weren’t sure who really loved them; the younger folks would despair that their life was wasting away as they waited and waited.
We even had a neighbor who had moved back to town so she could keep an eye on “her money”. She worried that if she continued to live outside of town her grandmother might forget about her, and if her grandmother forgot about her, the amount of money that she would receive from her grandmother upon her death would be significantly reduced. So she had moved back to town to make sure that she could be with her grandmother at every opportunity, holidays, week days, Sundays every possible opportunity – for there was much at stake. Her theory appeared to be: The greater time she spent with her grandmother, the greater wealth she would one day receive.
This young woman was promised to have a part of here grandmother’s last will and testament, but this young woman could not trust the promise, so she came to town to pile up the good works in front of her grandmother so she would be assured of a place in the estate.
But we, we don’t have to live like that – for with God, a promise is a promise and that promise is solid – it is the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.