Oh the stories my grandpa Jack would tell.  I do wish I could remember them all.  I could probably right a best seller book if I could remember them.  But one story I do remember I would like to share.

Jack (I call him Pap) grew up in the Centerville area of Yell County, Arkansas.  He took me there many times to go hunting and just reminiscing about growing up. He was telling me of a time on a Saturday morning, after doing his chores, of taking the family horse to “town”.  Pap and a few friends in there early teenage years were going to have a day.  Well, he was doing this out of mischief and disobedience to his pa.  This horse was the family horse and used to work on the farm.  On the way to back from town, the boys saw some girls they knew.  Well, the boys got to showing off and playing with the young ladies.  And Pap being the center of attention and “flirt” he was, had to show the girls what the “stallion” could do.  So he begins to ride the horse at a gallop and as he applied the reigns to the horse to stop it.  Those back hooves slipped from under the horse and skinned the hind end of the horse all up on the gravel.  Oh was Pap up set.  He had made a fool of himself in front of the ladies and the trip, he wasn’t supposed to make, to town would be found out by his pa.  The fun and excitement had just turned into dread and misery.

As he told me this story more than once, I began to ask him as I got older, “was it worth it?”.  And he told me, “In the moment it was all great and fun, but in the long run I wish I had listened and obeyed, pa!”

How do you live your life?  Do you live your life for the moment? Do you live your life for the fun with no consequence attitude? Or, do you live life thinking about tomorrow? Do you think about the positive or negative consequence before you act? Do you live for the rewards of the future?

You may still be asking where I am going with this.  Well, let’s do what I do now for my decisions.  Let’s take a look at what the Bible says and what hero’s of the Bible did.

Let’s start in Genesis with Adam.  Adam had it all.  God gave Adam dominion over every living creature (Gen. 1:28).  He could live with a wonderful relationship with God and the living things on earth.  He was to subdue it or control it all.  But, he gave it up when he and Eve decided to partake of the only thing God had told them to stay away from, the fruit from the tree in the Garden of Eden.  It was so tempting and so pretty.  The fruit looked so delicious and smelled wonderful.  Just how can you resist something like this right before your eyes.  But God had said, No! Do not eat of this tree.  So simply put, Adam and Eve could obey God and maintain a wonderful relationship with God, maintain dominion over all things, and never want for anything.  But they wanted this thing.  They wanted it now.  And with one bite or two. Their eyes were opened and their world turned upside down.

A little too extreme you think.  What about the children of Israel being led out of captivity by Moses and Aaron.  They were delivered from the hands of Pharaoh and saw supernatural event after supernatural event occur before their deliverance.  They saw the hand of God.  They knew God had their back.  Yet, when Moses went to the mountain to get the instruction for God and was gone, in God’s presence, for forty days and nights, the children of Israel couldn’t stand it.  They were impatient.  They questioned Moses’ legitimacy.  They talked Aaron in to building a golden calf to worship.  They wanted immediate satisfaction.  They couldn’t wait for the good stuff from God.  Those who committed sin against God were “blotted out of His book” (Exodus 32.33)

Maybe one more quick story.  In the Book of Esther, you see Haman devises a plan to do away with the Jews.  He was angry because Mordecai, a Jew, wouldn’t bow down to him.  Haman was a power-hungry man with a huge ego.  But Esther, Mordecai’s uncle’s daughter, was made queen to King Ahasuerus.  She in position to pray and petition the King for the sake of the Jews and let Haman’s plan be brought to light.  And because of Haman’s selfishness and ways, he was hanged at the gallows he had built for Mordecai.  Haman could have lived greatly the rest of his life as second to the King.  But his greed and ego overtook him.  And the Jews, God’s people, lived and were blessed instead.

So, may I encourage you to be careful as to what you choose.  Be careful where you have your eyes set.  Are you looking for an earthly reward? Or, are you waiting on the greater reward in heaven?  I choose the reward in heaven.

Bible Reference:

1.  Genesis 1:26-28 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

2. Genesis 3.

3. Exodus 32

4. Esther