1 Timothy 6.19 promises, in this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age. God encourages us to create and store treasure for ourselves in heaven. Think of it as the ultimate retirement savings account.

To earn heavenly treasure we have to think in the economics of heaven. We also have to choose which priority we will live for: short term this life existence or long term eternal life existence.

God warns us we cannot love money and God: we will focus on accumulating either the treasure of this world or the treasure of the world to come. In the passage today God lists additional means for us to accumulate heavenly treasure besides working at reconciling people to Jesus as Savior of the world.

Those ways are to do good, be rich in good deeds, and share generously with others. Doing good and being rich in good deeds are very similar. The latter is the focused effort at increasing the amount of good we are doing in the world.

The key to success in accumulating good deeds worthy of reward is defining those deeds by God’s standards and not our own since He is the One Who determines the heavenly rewards. The Bible, particularly the New Testament, is full of commands and examples for doing good.

Essentially they can be boiled down to making every effort to love others as we love ourselves by spending whatever time, talent or treasure we have to do so. The greater the personal cost the greater the reward in most cases. What costs us pennies in time, talent and treasure will have a corresponding heavenly value.

God teaches us that no greater love has one for his friend than he lay down his life for them. God gave the life of His Son to save all of humanity for all time.

The second thing we can do to earn heavenly treasure is to be as generous as possible with our material possessions. God is a giver so He takes great delight in His children who give sacrificially, continuously and abundantly just as He does to all of humanity.

The man who saves what he earns in order to live comfortably in this life is rebuked by God Who punishes the man who is not rich toward God. Being rich toward God is giving generously to the people of God who have legitimate needs because of the evil in the world or the sacrifice they are making to serve God in the world.

We cant take this world’s treasure with us to heaven but we can use it to earn treasure in heaven that will last us forever. It is the wise man who plans for the future and stores up treasure for living in that future.

Our future is not on this earth but in the Kingdom of God.