You bet your Life

May 12, 2014

Good Morning My Beloved Ones,

    I pray that as you live in the here and now you have an eye on eternity.

    Today I want to talk to you about “You bet your Life”.   Last summer my mom and I went on vacation to Laughlin, Nevada.  We spent four days at Harrah’s hotel and casino.  We both worked hard and saved up money so we could just go blow it and have fun without worrying about anything.  And we did.  It was a blast.

    Even as a sold-out follower of Christ, I’ve never

really believed that gambling was evil unless you had a problem with it.  As long as you weren’t betting the rent money, I saw it the same as going to a movie and buying a drink and popcorn:  the money’s gone, but you got entertainment out of it.

   It was a 5 ½ hour drive from my house to Laughlin, so I read to my mom as she drove.  The book I was reading was Coming Home to Jesus from the Unreal World by K.P. Yohannan (the founder of Gospel for Asia).  I had a great time in Laughlin, but as I looked around me, I kept hearing KP’s words, “If one of every 250 Christians gave $1 a day the whole world would be evangelized”.  I saw $100 swept away with one spin of a roulette wheel.  I saw people plug $20 after $20 into machines and spin it away.  I was doing it myself, and I thought of all the money just thrown away in one day in one casino in one city in America.  Which led to my next thought: “If all the money lost in just one day in each casino across America were given to world missions, I bet the whole world could be reached for Christ.”  It was a sobering thought.

    I’m not writing this to make anyone feel

guilty for how they spend their money, but I’ve just been made aware that I could be a much better steward with mine.  I was not betting my life, but that of others.  How many souls could have been saved with the money I had just thrown away for my own entertainment?  How many of us think about all the lost souls out there in this way at all?  I never had before.

    Eternity shouldn’t be a crap-shoot.  Let’s secure our own, then through good stewardship try to help secure it for others.  Will I be returning to Laughlin any time soon?  I wouldn’t bet on it.

More aware, your Sister in Christ, Raelynn