The Lesson

In verse nine, we find the application to the parable.

In the first lesson from the story, Jesus instructs us in this passage to use worldly wealth to gain friends for ourselves so that, when it is gone, we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Money invested wisely in this life is used by God for the eternal benefit of saving the lost. “If we would have God open His treasury, we must open ours” (Thomas V. Moore). I have a friend in Israel who has given her life to reaching others for Christ. She had an experience where she died after an internal hemorrhage. As she passed into eternity, she told me of seeing friends and loved ones that had already gone before her into eternity, and others singing to her and welcoming her home to her real home. She came before Jesus, but she heard her husband crying out to God in prayer for her. The Lord gave her a choice to stay there with Him or to return and to continue the work she had been doing. She chose to come back and to continue to labor. It is touching to know that there are those who will welcome us the other side of death’s door.

We have opportunities while we live our lives on earth to be a blessing to others, and for our heavenly welcome to be much more significant when lives we have touched welcome us home. When our lives are over, what we have given, and what we have accomplished in the Kingdom of God will have eternal consequences and eternal rewards. Heaven is a reality which, someday, we will experience. It will be too late to invest then. You cannot take it with you. Just as in the game of Monopoly, it must all go back in the box, sometime.

All that remains in eternity is what we have invested in God’s kingdom. It is heavenly wisdom to sit down and think through very carefully how you want to invest in this life. Jesus spoke a lot about how we use our resources, and He always linked this to our hearts. How we use our gifts, talents, and resources says a lot about us and our faith. It reveals our hearts.

What type of eternal dwelling are you preparing through your actions and investments here on earth? There are those who are very prominent in this world that may have to be very humble in the next. There will be many surprises in the kingdom of God. Those whom no-one notices in this world may be the princes in the world to come.