What Do You See?

A rich but miserable man once visited a rabbi seeking understanding of his life and how he might find peace. The rabbi led the man to a window and said, "What do you see?"
"I see men, women, and children," answered the rich man.  The rabbi then took the man and stood him in front of a mirror. "Now what do you see?" he asked.  "I see myself," the rich man replied.

"Yes," said the rabbi. "It is a strange thing, is it not? In the window there is a glass and in the mirror there is a glass.  But the glass of the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others, and see only yourself."

Someone has well said: "Money is a good servant - but a poor master. The lure for gold is stronger than the human will, and with many a man it stands between his 
SOUL and his GOD. Someday it will be discovered that the bars that shut MANY out of the kingdom of heaven are forged of silver and gold!"

The Scriptures warn: "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows" (1 Tim 6:9-10).

   Unfortunately, many do not see God and His will for their lives because 
     they have allowed their vision to become clouded by "a little silver." 
                    
                             Their WINDOW has become a MIRROR! 

Those who have an intense desire for money and the things that money can buy are often blinded to the fact that God loves them, and He wants them to become His children and inherit TRUE riches. Through faith in God and His Son (Hebrews 11:6), repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10-11), confession (Romans 10:9-10), and baptism (immersion) for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), God adopts us as His children. 
And if we are His children, then we are heirs - "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17) -- IF WE CONTINUE... to walk according to our Father's instructions.

What do YOU see?  Do you see a  " temporary reflection"  of YOURSELF in a glass containing silver? 

Or, are you able to see THROUGH the glass -- beyond yourself -- to LIFE that beckons from the other side?

God bless you!

David A. Sargent, Minister 

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

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