I know that many of you are heading off to school this week. Some of you already left for school, or classes have started here, or, your just settling in on yet another year of servitude to your job or whatever ties you to this old Earth.

If you are going away to school you know you have to pack light and take just what you need, because you can’t take it ALL with you. If you’re staying here you need to pace yourself and only buy what you need…. otherwise you’ll be on the next session of “Hoarders.”

I was preparing for an upcoming chapel service and I ran across an awesome verse in John’s Gospel letter. It’s from John chapter 14, verse 3. It says this, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.”

Isn’t it strange that we spend years on end collecting things to make life worth living on earth, only to leave it all here when we go home. Your favorite stuff will probably get broken when you’re gone…. Someone else will live in your house, drive your car, play with your stuff…. The average life span is less than 80 years. (If you’re 16, that IS a long time from now.) I’m a little closer to the end than I was yesterday and I’m beginning to realize that I don’t need all this stuff.

What I do need, is a firm faith in Jesus. A committed relationship with the creator of the universe. I NEED to know that when I leave my stuff behind, I am going on to be with the one who is preparing a place for me. A place not full of MY stuff, but His stuff. Life just the way He intended it to be when He first created man.

If you don’t take anything else away from this blog post, at least stop to think about what’s really important today. Time with friends and family, or hours spent attaining riches? Memories with parents or loved ones, or fighting to prove you’re right? You have your own scenarios, fill in the blanks.

See, the real deal is where will you spend eternity. This world is not your home. If Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that He alone, through His grace and love for you, has the power to forgive you of ALL of the sins in your life, then your “home” is with Him in heaven.

Jesus’ own words recorded in Mark 8:36 – “What good is it for a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

I don’t know about you, but for me, I’m going to change my focus today. I’m going to try to start this day focusing on God’s plan for me here. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to see things a little more clearly tomorrow.