By REV. TIMOTHY L. MELTON
(Transcribed by Myra D. Colgate)
Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Continued from last week…
Read Luke 16:19-31; 1 Corinthians 3:11-16
What’s interesting to me our lives are coming to an end, and Eternity is coming along, we can know there was one who now gets to Iive in richness and the other will be finding out just how ‘poor’ he really is. From Verse 27, here’s what he’s saying, “I want to be about the Father’s business, now, I want to send some treasure ahead… but it’s too late…”
When he’d found out the level of poverty that he would live in for eternity, even from right now, the first thing that crossed his mind was, “I’d better send some treasure on ahead, or at least I’d like to,” but the problem is, “the treasure of God is really not in anyone’s heavenly bank account.”
One could wear all the gold they have around their neck and on their fingers (like Mr. T, if one should remember him as wearing chains of pure gold around his neck) but this choice means it is literally nothing very special to God. In fact, He walks on the gold as only pavement under His feet. We could even cherish a very large pearl, but God has already made a much larger one into a gate of Heaven out of it. We could think of all the jewels we could pick up there from off of the ground, but God has already built walls there with those.
So, what is it that God really wants? What would be the true Treasure of God? So, I’ve got good news for all today. You, we all are the Treasure of God. The ones sitting here today are the same ones that God sent Jesus here to die for. He was willing to send His only Son, Jesus, the Darling of Heaven, down here for us all. Each of us should know that we are really a part of the portion of the Treasure that is going to fill Heaven one day, and this will be very soon.
But here’s what God needs us to understand. We must be messing with the possible statements we may have heard over the years in songs, or what we’ve heard being preached over the years that may not really have measured up with what the Bible truly states. We must investigate the Bible to more clearly see what has been meant.
I remember my Grandmother who started four Church of God churches, she loved the Lord with all her heart and told me all kinds of things to the level of her knowledge, but when I grew up and started reading my Bible, I started thinking “she was right here on what she said, and she was wrong there, and now I choose to live in what I find in the Word of God, not just in what someone else says. I live in what I find in the Word of God. Everyone should be taking down notes all the time. Watching the media, lately, everyone should feel a need to go back and read what is said for themselves. Don’t take my word for it, or any other preacher. We need to have the Holy Ghost say it to us. It could get rougher for just a minute, but I’ll make it right before this is over.
There will be ‘poor’ people in Heaven. I heard a song being sung on the radio, “Just Build Me a Little Cabin in a Corner of Glory Land.” I heard my own Daddy say, when I was just a boy, “That’s not right.”
I asked him, “Why is that, Daddy?”
He told me, “Because it says in my Bible, in Heaven there are many mansions.”
In 1 Corinthians 3:11-16, Paul, in talking to the Christian believers, said “we are to lay a foundation.” We are to build on a foundation with gold, silver, jewels not the wood, hay and stubble. There are those who didn’t walk in their anointing who got saved, who didn’t do what they were called to do. They didn’t come to church on a regular basis. They were willing to do whatever and did build something, but it was only a temporary structure of only wood, hay or stubble.
Then there are those who got saved and said, “I’m going to use my talents for the Lord. I’m going to stay in the prayer closet until I get anointed. I’m going to do what I was called to do, instead of just sitting in a pew. I don’t just want to be there any longer. I’m ready to get up and do something for Jesus.
Can I tell everyone…our time is running out? I believe Jesus is coming back soon! Sooner than anyone thinks! Let’s get our House in order. The House I’m talking about is what one is building on the foundation of Jesus the Lord because that way we are at least building something that lasts.
