Everything Is Ours

Everything Is Ours

Since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. –Romans 8:17-18

I hassled my parents in jest recently when they went on an extended exotic cruise, telling them they are spending my inheritance! My dad loves to say that he wants to do what his father did—die broke. So I guess I shouldn’t count on getting rich someday from any earthly inheritance.

But my eternal inheritance is sure and secure, and so is yours if you are a child of God. God has made up a will that provides for the future of his children. Scripture says we will inherit a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself, God’s promises, and the riches of heaven. We don’t know exactly what the essence of our inheritance will be, but we can be confident that heaven will not disappoint us like life does. And when we truly value what we have to gain there, we no longer sulk over what we’ve lost here. God himself becomes our dearest desire and greatest inheritance.

Does it sometimes seem as if you’ve lost everything dear to you, and do you wonder what else is going to be taken from you? Someday each one of us will leave this earth and let go of everyone we have loved and everything we have enjoyed. We’ll be left with only our eternal inheritance. But Paul has done the math, and by his careful calculations he assures us that what we suffer here is nothing compared to the glory of our eternal inheritance. Nothing. It seems a stretch to us from where we sit. But if you don’t trust his calculations, if you do not highly value your eternal inheritance, you will overvalue what God has given you on earth and your grip on it will become a tyranny to you. But as you value the privilege of being an heir with Jesus, you will begin to live like the glory he will share with you one day is worth everything it may cost you. You will see your suffering as a severe mercy that keeps you from falling more deeply in love with the comforts, securities, and pleasures of this world so you can anticipate more fully a rich and rewarding inheritance in the next.

My generous Father, you have provided abundantly for me and my future by making me one of your heirs, and I am grateful. Looking forward to my eternal inheritance helps me to loosen my grip on the things of this world.

DIGGING DEEPER