John D. Rockefeller was one of the wealthiest men who ever lived. After he died someone asked his accountant, “How much did John D. leave?” The reply was classic: “He left…all of it.”

You can’t take it with you. If that point is clear in your mind, you’re ready to hear the secret of the Treasure Principle.

The Treasure Principle

Jesus takes that profound truth, “You can’t take it with you” and adds a stunning qualification. By telling us to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven, He gives us a breathtaking corollary, which I call the Treasure Principle:

You can’t take it with you—but you can send it on ahead.

It’s that simple. And if it doesn’t take you breath away, you’re not understanding it! Anything we try to hang on to here will be lost. But anything we put into God’s hands will be ours for eternity (insured for infinitely more than $100,000 by the real FDIC, the Father’s Deposit Insurance Corporation).

If we give instead of keep, if we invest in the eternal instead of in the temporal, we store up treasures in heaven that will never stop paying dividends. Whatever treasures we store up on earth will be left behind when we leave. Whatever treasures we store up in heaven will be waiting for us when we arrive.
Financial planners tell us, “When it comes to your money, don’t think just three months or three years ahead. Think thirty years ahead.” Christ, the ultimate investment counselor, takes it further. He says, “Don’t ask how your investment will be paying off in just thirty years. Ask how it will be paying off in thirty million years.”

Suppose I offer you one thousand dollars today to spend however you want. Not a bad deal. But suppose I give you a choice—you can either have that one thousand dollars today or you can have ten million dollars five years from now. Only a fool would take the thousand dollars today. Yet that’s what we do whenever we grab onto something that will last for only a moment, forgoing something far more valuable that we could enjoy later for much longer.
The money God entrusts us here on earth is eternal investment capital. Every day is an opportunity to buy up more shares in His kingdom.
It’s a revolutionary concept. If you embrace it, I guarantee it will change your life. As you store up heavenly treasures, you’ll gain an everlasting version of what that man found in the treasure hidden in the field—Joy.

—Excerpted from The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn (Eternal Perspective Ministries, www.epm.org), Multnomah Publishers. Used by permission of author.