What is Valuable and What is Not?

    My Father had a trunk in the attic of one of our houses.  The trunk contained many items from my Dad's days in the Civilian Conservation Corps while working in California.  There was a stick that had the names of every state he traveled through on his way to California and a number from a theater seat in Bakers Field, California and a jar of insects including a tarantula spider.  All of the items in that trunk perished in a fire and no one cares nor mourns their loss.  I have seen some paintings that were considered to be extremely valuable yet I couldn't tell if they were hung right side up or not.  It sometimes amazes me what the world thinks is both important and valuable.  A recent news report stated that a certain building had burned in the Los Angeles area.  The building was a total loss but one item had been saved by the owner.  The owner had saved a pair of fatigue uniforms that had once been worn by Elvis Pressley.  The world is filled with a number of items that have been given an important or valuable place in the world.   They could be baseballs that were hit over the fence to clothes or cars that once belonged to a famous person.  What is ironic is that the same person may have placed no value on his own soul.  Mark 8:36-37 says, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" 
         When it comes right down to it, the value placed on an army fatigue uniform once worn by Elvis Pressley fails to compare in the importance of one soul.  When your final breath comes, what value would you place on your own soul?  What would you give in order to guarantee a blessed inheritance in regard to your own soul?  Naturally speaking, we would give everything that we have in order to have a spot in eternal life.  There are some people who think they will have enough time to decide for Christ during their last moments on this earth.  That thought is a terrible gamble as one can take on breath and go into eternity before there is time for the next breath.  The Scripture sums it up when it states, "what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"  It is a rhetorical question and the answer is that there is there is nothing that he will give in exchange for his soul.  So, take a look around you and decide what is more important to you, your things or your own soul?  Obviously, the answer is that your soul is more important.  Solomon summed it up in Ecclesiastes 12:7 when he said, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.   Praise God today that He is able to save the soul.