Pants With No Pockets
By Ronnie Wyatt
I heard about an evangelist that used to travel all across the world preaching at huge revival meetings and how he found himself in quite a dilemma. It seems that one day he was flying across country to a series of meetings when his luggage was lost by the airline. This left him without a suit to wear on the day that the revival was to start!
In an effort to find something to wear, he visited a local thrift shop. To his surprise, he found two suits that looked absolutely perfect and amazingly they were his size! Overjoyed, he took the suits up to the counter desiring to purchase them. It was then that he received a warning from the shop owner.
“Sir,” said the little old man behind the counter. “I just want you to know that we get our merchandise from a lot of different places. I think that I need to tell you that the suits that you want to buy came to us from the local funeral home. Oh, they’ve been cleaned and everything, but I wanted you to know that these suits have been on the bodies of dead men. Some people may have a real problem with that.”
“Oh, no problem,” said the preacher. “Things like that don’t bother me.” The preacher paid for the suits and went on to prepare for his meetings.
That night as he was getting dressed he noticed something that seemed very odd. There were no pockets in the jacket, only a flap that looked like a pocket. And to his surprise there were no pockets in the pants! Curious as to the missing pockets, he called the man at the thrift shop. It was then that he heard one of the greatest messages ever preached and it came from the little old shop owner.
The wise old man said to the preacher, “I told you that these suits came from the funeral home. Dead men do not need pockets!” I’ll give you one guess what he preached on that night!
Sometimes we get so caught up in temporal things. It seems that our lives are consumed with trying to get all we can in this life. We have to have the best of everything right now. Often we forget that the things that will last throughout eternity are not the things that we “pocket” here.
Jesus reminds us of this when He said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s okay to have nice things here, but never let your pursuit of those things keep you from serving the Lord. What it all boils down to in the end is this… the only thing that truly has eternal value is what you do for Jesus now.
Verse To Meditate On:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:8-10
Ronnie Wyatt is an Evangelist, Author, Christian Comedian, Conference Speaker and the Executive Director of Crosseyed Ministries – www.crosseyedministries.com
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