1 Timothy 6:19

Here Paul tells the rich believers to lay up in store for themselves a good foundation for the time to come by their generous giving to others. It may not seem like good common sense, but it is the surer way of grace in faith. To be consistent with Christ is to treasure up for ourselves. It is all the better when we do it so that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It is a key truth in Christian practice that our Father sees in secret. It is just as true that we will have reward later with Him who is in heaven.

A rich person may use his wealth in the service of God and in the help of His people. So the man who starts out rich in money may end up rich in good works, and this is wealth of a more lasting kind. Earthly riches are uncertain. The man who stores them up for himself may find his store badly depleted just when he needs it most. The man who uses his riches in the service of God is laying up a good foundation of reward in eternity.

The dishonest manager of Luke 16 is an example of this. Our Lord did not approve his dishonesty, but He did approve his prudence. While he had the opportunity, he used it with an eye to the future. The Christian should do the same. But there is this difference. The manager had dreaded days of unemployment ahead of him. The Christian should keep in view the judgment seat of Christ, where everything we have done will be brought into the light of God.

It is no question at all of the grace by which a person is saved, and that entirely apart from works. It is the teaching of that grace which has saved us, leading us to sacrifice all present advantages in view of what is future and eternal.

When God has saved us, He will keep us, but we have to go through the wilderness, where we have a great deal to learn, including the question of service, and even of rewards, and much more besides. People mix all these things up with the question of acceptance. But as to the crown in front of me, that is not a question of my being saved; it is my encouragement.

Rich believers are to be godly. They are to bend their energies not toward laying hold of bigger things in this world, but toward laying hold of "eternal life," or "that which is really life." The second reading is probably the correct one. Real life is not found in money and the pleasures it buys, but in the knowledge and service of God.

We lay hold on eternal life as we realise in our souls that we do not belong to this sphere. Everything for us is bound up with the place we are going to. So we learn to see the things of this life very differently from the way we once saw them. We realise that the true life is life in fellowship with God. In the Spirit's power we can then use this world without abusing it.

Satan is busy, even among Christians, shutting out the things of God. He does it through things that in themselves may not be evil. We are taken up with them and pressed by them, and we have not learned to link them with God and use them for God. Sadly, the secular part of our lives quietly steals away so much of "what is really life."

"Storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life," is the apostolic instruction about those who are rich in this world. In measure, all may do this, even those who are poor in this world's goods. To lay up treasure in heaven for themselves is the privilege even of the poorest in the church.