Handling Money as Heaven's Citizens

Suppose you had the opportunity to visit Heaven for a while; how do you think that experience would affect how you live here on earth?  And how do you think that visit would change the way you handle your money?  Charles Spurgeon pondered these questions and wrote these thoughts in a sermon entitled, "A Heavenly Pattern for Our Earthly Life" - April 30, 1884:

I do not think this man coming fresh from Heaven would say, "I must have this luxury; I must have this nice outfit; I must have this grand house."  But he would say, "How much can I save for the God of Heaven?  How much can I invest in the country I came from?"

I am sure he would be pinching pennies to save money to serve God with.  And as he went about the streets and mingled with ungodly men and women, he would be sure to find ways of getting at their consciences and hearts; he would always be trying to bring others to the bliss he enjoyed.

Think that over, and live so -- so as he did who really did come down from Heaven.  For after all, the best rule of life is, What would Jesus do if he were here today and the world were lying in the grip of the wicked one?  If Jesus were in your businesses, if he had your money, how would he spend it?  For that is how you ought to spend it.  

Now think, my brother, you will be in Heaven very soon. . .Sitting up in those celestial seats, how shall we wish that we had lived below?  It would not give any man in Heaven even a moment's joy to think that he gratified himself while here.  It will give him no reflections suitable to the place to remember how much he amassed, how much he left behind to be quarreled over after was gone.  He will say to himself, "I wish I had saved more of my capital by sending it on before me, for what I saved on Earth was lost, but what I spent for God was really laid up where thieves do not break through and steal."

Oh, brothers, let us live as we shall wish we had lived when life is over; let us fashion a life which will bear the light eternal.  Is it life to live otherwise?