“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25
What occupies your thoughts from day to day? Is it to get ahead financially and materially? Are your great aspirations for life to have a nicer home, a more luxurious car, more exquisite vacations, a sizable nest egg for your retirement, and for your children to have even more wealth than you do? Beware! Money was never meant to fill the void in the human soul.
Adolph Coors IV was born into wealth and privilege. His great-grandfather started the Coors Brewing Company, and his grandfather and father continued the leadership of what is now one of the biggest brewing companies in the world. Adolph aspired to be the youngest president of the company. But all of it left him empty and disillusioned. “I began to bury myself in materialism," he says. "My many futile attempts at covering up this emptiness were useless because the emptiness always came back."
By God’s grace, Adolph Coors IV eventually came to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. He left the brewing company and began a ministry sharing the gospel around the world. He says this regarding his youth, “I wish someone had told me when I was young, “Adolph, if you live for the next world, you will gain this one in the deal, but if you live strictly for this world, you’ll end up losing them both.””
How many people have sacrificed their marriages, their children, their families – all to get ahead financially, and the money that was supposed to satisfy leaves them only emptier! Even as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can get sidetracked and begin to subtly believe the lie that fulfillment comes with material gain! And we can unconsciously pass that message on to our children by our lifestyle. But the Lord, in His grace, is calling us this morning to a life of dying to self and living for the next world! That is the only life that brings true fulfillment!