GOODMORNING-A Good Name is to Be Chosen Over Great Riches

Once you become saved and born again in the Lord, that is just the beginning. From there, God wants you to grow in His knowledge and grace, along with setting you up in what your divine destiny is going to be in Him. And when God sets you up in your divine destiny, then you will find out exactly what you were created for and exactly what He will be wanting you to do for Him in this life.
Once you come into this full surrender with the Lord, He will then let you know who you should be marrying in this life, along which jobs you will be taking and exactly what your calling is going to be in Him.
Again, we cannot emphasize this theme strong enough. If you want to find out exactly what your true purpose and destiny is going to be in this life, then you have to be willing to fully surrender your entire life and your entire being into the hands of God the Father. Since God is all-knowing and all-powerful, only He will know exactly what you should be doing with your life, along with exactly how to get you to where you will need to go.
In this article, I want to add one more profound verse into this mix. Here is this most profound verse, and then I will point out a few, key things for all of us to really grab ahold of from this very powerful verse.
“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.” (Proverbs 22:1)
1. When you really think about the big picture, this earthly life is very, very short. Sooner or later we will all die and cross over to the other side – which will either be heaven for the saved or hell for the unsaved.
As we have said before, no suitcases will need to be packed on your deathbed. Absolutely nothing will be crossing over with you to the other side once you die and cross over. Naked you came into this world and naked will you go out of this world. Plain and simple.
All of the money you have made and saved up in this life will not be crossing over with you. All of the material wealth you have acquired such as your house, your car, and your clothes will not be going with you. The only thing that will be going over to the other side is your soul and spirit once it pulls up out of your earthly body.
From there, if you are a Christian, you will then enter into heaven and you will then come before Jesus at His Judgment Seat where He will then do a full review of your life. The Bible says that Jesus will then be rewarding us up in heaven according to the good works we had done for Him while down here on this earth.
2. So knowing that this is how it will all end up for us as Christians, we all need to do an occasional review of our life from time to time so we can make sure that we are always staying on the right path with God and not straying off into areas that He would not want us to be going into in this life.
We also need to make sure that we always keep all of our priorities straight so we can stay on top of our game with the Lord and not miss out on any of the good blessings He will want to pass our way in this life.
My brother Chris and I live in the United States. God has blessed our country with incredible wealth and riches over the years. However, with all of these kinds of material blessings from the Lord, it becomes very easy for many to get off center with the Lord and start focusing and chasing after all the wrong things in this life.
And this is where the above verse is now going to come into major play. With our country having so much material wealth to play with and go after, many people end up spending the rest of their earthly lives chasing after all of this material wealth and trying to acquire as much of it as they can before they die and cross over.
However, sooner or later all of these people will eventually die and once again, absolutely nothing they have acquired and earned in this life will be going with them to the other side. And this will now bring us right into the real heart of the above verse.
3. Notice this verse is telling us that it is better to live for having a good name in this life rather than to chase after all of the material wealth of this world.
Why? Because when someone dies and all of their friends and family are attending their funeral service paying their last respects, what is the number one thing most people will remember about the one who has just passed away? The number one thing they will remember and take away with them is what kind of person they were and how well they had treated other people in this life.
They will not remember all of the riches and wealth they may have accumulated. They will only remember what kind of person they were and how well they had treated other people in this life.
If that person ends up dying with a good name, then people will have good, loving, and fond memories of that person and those memories will last forever. If that person was a mean, spiteful, and selfish person who cared about no one else but themselves, then people will walk away with negative memories and they will be glad this person will no longer be living among them.
How many times have you seen this at a funeral service when friends and family would get up to speak about the one who has just passed away, how they will always talk about what kind of person they were. This is always the first thing most people will talk about when they are talking about someone who has just passed away. They will always talk about the quality of their loved one’s personality, not how much money they had made or how many material blessings they had accumulated in this life.
This is why the Lord worded the above verse the way He did. He is trying to show all of us what is most important in this life. And what is most important in this life is that we try and become the best person we can in Him through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
If we can let God mold and shape us into the true saints He wants us to become in Him in this life, then we will be able to leave this life having a good name, just like the above verse is telling us to do. And if we can leave this life having a good name and a good reputation, then all of our loved ones will end up having good, loving, and fond memories of us.
This is how God wants us to leave this world, with us fully accomplishing all of His perfect will for our lives, and then with all of our loved ones really cherishing and loving us for the kind, good, and righteous people we were in this life.
CONCLUSION

As you can see from the way the above verse is being worded by the Lord, the only thing people will remember about you when everything is all finally said and done is what kind of person you were in this life. And yet so many people live this life for just the exact opposite. They live for all of the material wealth they can accumulate in this life instead of living for what God’s purpose was for their lives, along with what God was wanting to do with the transformation of their minds and their souls.
As we have showed you in our article titled, “Sanctification,” the number one thing God wants to do with each one of us is to transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ. He wants to consecrate and set us apart unto Himself. He wants to make us more holy like Himself.
Bottom line – God is the Potter and we are the clay. If we can let God do the kind of transformation work He wants to do with each one of us, then we can leave this world having a very good name just like the above verse is telling us to do.
And if we can leave this world having a very good name, then we can have the satisfaction and fulfillment that we did everything God had asked us to do for Him in this life, along with leaving very fond and loving memories into the hearts of all of the people we had truly loved down here.
Though the above verse is a very short one-liner, there is an incredible piece of revelation contained in it showing us what we should all be striving for and what is really most important in this life.
Remember – when it is all said and done and you get ready to leave this world for the next one, no one will care about how much money you have made or how many earthy possessions you had accumulated. All they will remember is what kind of person in the Lord you had become and how well you had treated other people in this life.
Become the sanctified saint that God is asking you to become in Him, and you will then leave this world with a good name and good reputation – and people will then love you, cherish you, and always remember you for all of eternity.