Everlasting Treasure

My sons recently began playing the computer game "Minecraft."  In the game the player explores a huge pixelated three-dimensional environment, either mining in the ground or building structures.  After watching them play awhile I decided to have a go, seeking the ever-elusive gold ore and diamonds.  Within an hour I found a huge cavern underground which led me to another cavern with waterfalls of water and lava.  When I was a kid I used to dig around looking for quartz crystal and this game brought back those old feelings, without the blisters!

As I continued to place torches for light and explore my surroundings, deeper and deeper I went.  Before too long I had found what I was looking for:  iron ore, diamonds, gold ore, and redstone dust.  But in our excitement (my kids of course were coaching me throughout!), we had gone deeper than initially planned and were running short on torches and wood.  I felt like Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer, trying to escape from a deep cavern without any light!  Try as I might, I could not locate the way out.  I kept walking in circles, unable to progress.  And since my pick wore out from digging up all those diamonds, digging would have taken forever.

So we decided to risk building a path over some flowing lava to hopefully make our escape.  My character was carrying all our precious metals and materials.  To my dismay I slipped off the pathway and fell into the lava!  I had not saved the game because I didn't want to go back to the title menu.  It suddenly hit me that all the valuable items I collected were gone for good, lost in the lava.  I would be able to recover them, wouldn't I?  My boys just stared at me:  no, all the items were lost.  "Everything?  Falling in the lava cost me everything?"  Perhaps the game was closer to reality than I first thought!

How true this is in life!  We can spend our days searching after all these elusive treasures of the world only to lose them in the end.  Or our search for significance and meaning takes us to the deepest recesses of sin from which there is no escape apart from Christ.  To have the words of life and not to use them would be such a tragedy!  It's true:  nothing from the world but what is of God will last.  God's character, love, His Word, and those washed in the blood of the Lamb will endure forever, but all is lost for those who deny Christ and die in their sins.  How important it is that we invest our lives in what really matters in God's eternal economy.  We ought to store up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust won't corrupt, where thieves can't break in and steal, where all your goods can't be consumed in a lava flow.  Where our treasure is, there will be our hearts also!  Give your heart to Jesus today!