Featured Photo credit: Bing/Heaven

This earth is like a marketplace; you will buy your necessities and eventually go to your home where you’ll put those things to good use, weather now or later. While that analogy is true for this earthly place, it’s a much different story when it comes to the spiritual realm.  This earth is not our permanent home, we’re only here for a short while and soon, we’ll all come face to face with the month, date and year after the short “dash” after our birth-date and that’s our demise date.

Okay, so before you give this post the “OH NO LOOK” just hear me out….

On March 31^st the rap world lost a visionary, an icon of sorts, a family man and community activist by the name of Ermias Asghedom a.k.a Nipsey Hussell. I have to admit, I didn’t know him or even heard of him prior to his demise, the only person I knew that was close to him was his longtime girlfriend Lauren London, I had seen her in quite a few movies. From the video’s that I watched of him, past interviews, the couples question game he played with the love of his life and music video’s all the way down to the changes he had and was making in his community made me realize that this guy was well loved, cherished and had a big heart. Like many of us, he learned to turn a negative past into a positive future for everyone around him. He wanted to change the world by making it a better place. Nipsey was just 33 when he passed away.

I found myself wanting to play God in this scenario and think of ways if I was God, how I would have done it differently, “Silly girl, what was I thinking!” I just hate to hear about young people dying in which shameless and admittedly I TRY to play God often in those scenarios (don’t judge me please). But I felt increasingly horrible with Nipsey for some reason as I was looking at how greatly loved he was and I found myself wishing his demise had played out differently but the bible says “Warning before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” – before everyone leaves this earth, there always comes warning first.

If we don’t have a relationship with God or if that relationship is on again/off again, it may be very difficult to hear his warning or even see it but God doesn’t allow things to just happen to people without proper notice and that goes for everyone, including me! So, you may be saying – what does your title and Nipsey have to do with one another and it’s simple “We can’t get caught up in the things we do here on earth, but we must work on storing up investments beyond this earth” that’s when I took off my God hat and began to pray and wonder – Did Nipsey store up the right investments?

On earth we all want to invest in something – these investments, if good – could make us very wealthy and if not, make us very poor. Most of us live on earth as if we’re never going to die, as if we’re going to live forever and we become comfortable in making this dirty place our permanent home. Thing is, people are dying younger and younger every day, most of the time without warning. When a rich man and a poor man die – it’s the first time for once that they’re in the exact same boat. Both must stand before the Lord naked and without nothing, at this point – the fame they had or didn’t have on earth is meaningless.

Psalms 49:10-14 NIV (study lesson states)

The only riches we have at the time are those we have already invested in our eternal heritage. At the time of death, each of us will wish we had invested less on earth, where we must leave it and more in heaven where we will retain if forever. To have treasure in heaven, we must place our faith in God, pledge ourselves to obey him and utilize our resources for the good of his kingdom.

It’s not that God wants us to live poor lives, oh no….he wants us to live full, healthy and prosperous lives (3 John 1:2). His desire is that we not get caught up in material things and people (1 John 2:15). We’re not perfect but we strive every day to live and be perfect even as our father in heaven is perfect. Jesus walking the earth in the flesh was the “perfect” and best exemplified example of how we should live, act, walk and speak. It’s not easy, it’s really not. As a matter of fact, it’s hard to try and live right with soooo much temptation around, I get it – trust me but as Apostle Deanna Dixon states “Every day we have to Fight” we have to fight to live right, we have to fight to keep from cursing somebody out, we have to fight to stay in our lane and quit veering over into someone else’s lane, we have to fight to keep our sanity, we have to fight to make sure we’re making the right investments (Deuteronomy 10:12).

I pray every day that God keep me, because this sister right here – HONTAY!! My flesh can get stirred up REALLLLLL bad. I have to ask God to keep my mind on him and off of sex, OH YES!! – I didn’t say I was holier than thou! I have to ask God to keep my mind from wanting to be popular and noticed, YES! I have to ask God to keep me from going backwards into toxic relationships all because I want someone in my bed at night, I have to ask God to keep my mind and a smile on my face when I shake hands or talk to people that I KNOW DON’T LIKE OR DESPISE ME!!, I have to constantly ask for prayer to keep my attitude in check because I want to pop off….IT’S A FIGHT YA’LL! But to see Jesus one day and for him to tell me those 7 words I’m dying to hear:

“Well done my Good and Faithful Servant”

Now hearing those words would be worth it all!! I don’t know what your God affiliation is and I AM NOT trying to convert you either! but I want you to think about it. One day this earth will pass away and we will too. This earth is just a market place for goods now, nothing to be compared to the real goods we’ll have on the other side if we invest correctly.

Are you making the right investments?
Heaven & Earth will Pass away but my words WILL NEVER pass away (Matthew 24:35 NIV)

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