Earning Potential (and why you have none)

You have no earning potential. None.

Then again neither do I. Nor did Mother Teresa nor does Michael Bloomberg.

How's that for an Upworthy post title?

This guy has no earning potential. Surprised?

In a recent interview Michael Bloomberg, said the following: 

“I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

In that statement he was referring to his work on unhealthy foods, smoking and gun violence. Over his life time he has probably given well over a billion (billion with a b) dollars to various organizations for various purposes. Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, it's pretty hard to say that he is a stingy person.

Oh, and did I mention he has a net worth of ~33 billion dollars?

$33,000,000,000 and yet he has no earning potential.

Zero, zip, nada.

But that's OK, because neither do you. Or me. Or anyone else for that matter.

Let's switch gears for a minute. Mother Teresa spent 47 years of her life offering help to the helpless and hope for the dying. She took a group of 13 people and grew it into a group of over 4,000 helping a hopeless people in 123 countries. By all accounts she was the personification of someone who lived as well as she knew how for Jesus.

She also had no earning potential. None whatsoever.

You see, you cannot earn your way to Heaven. You cannot earn forgiveness. You cannot earn your spot for when that Great Day comes. No matter how rich you are or how much you give or how much you do there is nothing within yourself that can make you worthy of salvation and light and Life.

Nothing.

The problem, you see, is sin. And there is nothing we can do about sin. Once it has taken hold, we are ruined. Discredited. Destroyed.

Romans 6:23 says: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

A gift.

Something given. Freely.

We just have to be willing to take it and be His. Because when we do we are told "sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace (Rom. 8:14). We no longer have to be under that old slave driver who hates us. Instead we can become participants in the family of God by becoming His children. We can have something good, something whole, something good again.

Unfortunately we often seem to forget that with all the stuff going on in our lives. School & sports place their chains on our time, work places its chains on our energy, entertainment places its chains on our free time and thoughts, and before long we find ourselves bound, heading back to the slavery we thought we'd escaped, trying to earn our way out of it by praying a little here and going to church a little there.

Its time to break free.

To break the chains of your oppression, to free yourself from the burdens of the world, to give yourself totally over to the only One who can keep you free. So break free. As my Dad always said, "Remember who you are and whose you are." Be strengthened. Be love. Be free.

Be His.