Learn to Live Forever!

Last night my sons and I watched a program that showed the experiences of men from Tanna who visited the United States.  These indigenous people went from a tropical environment and loincloths in a remote village to living with people in a cabin in Montana!  As these men cooked for the first time, toured a cattle ranch, went to a rodeo, and experienced snow, they more resembled children than men in their excitement.  I was fascinated by their observations and insights which were both simple and profound.

As they stood under the big Montana sky, they spoke to each other about how big America was.  One of them remarked to the best of my recollection:  "All these people have to do is learn to live forever.  How sad it is to have all this land and fat wallets and die like everyone else."  I was staggered by this simple wisdom.  Here is a man who had never likely enrolled in what western civilization would call an "accredited school" but showed wisdom which exceeds many post graduates.  He recognized the same thing that King Solomon spoke of in Ecclesiastes:  the good and bad die alike.  Heaping up riches on this earth is vanity and futile, for all your hard work will benefit someone else in the end.

This man perhaps had never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who promises eternal life to all who repent and trust in Him.  The secret to living forever is not found in a fountain, balm, or hidden remote area:  it is found only in Jesus.  While those in the world focus on heaping up perishable riches which make wings and fly away with the rate of exchange, Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven.  Matthew 6:19-20 reads,  "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal."  We cannot take our earthly treasure where we are going, and only those who treasure Jesus Christ will receive of His heavenly reward.

Sometimes a fresh perspective in minutes can give us insights which for many years have remained hidden from our eyes.  This island native in the documentary described in his own dialect the futility of materialism.  His words are a rebuke to all people who live for today with no thought of the future.  Are we laying up treasures in heaven?  1 John 2:17 states, "And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."  That is good news indeed:  Christ died for sinners, and all who rely upon Jesus will be saved!  Repent and trust in Christ today!