Plunder...but they can't take the good stuff

...you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and perserve their souls. Hebrews 10:34-39

It's hard to maintain perspective in this country that seems to be falling further and further away from the True Vine, Jesus. Watch the news on any given night and you see the "fruit" of abiding in Christ is NOT there often enough. Disrespect, self-glorification, rising taxes, scandal... I'd be lying if I said fear never creeps into my mind. This week, I read this passage in Hebrews and it reassured me of hope. I love the end of verse 34, even if we are stripped of everything we work to physically possess, we have a better possession! We have an inheritance: eternal life, and NO government or ill-will citizen could ever take that away from us. But don't overlook the last phrase in this verse: "we have an abiding [possession]," Christ with us, present tense! Every time fear begins its attack...I need to have confidence that He that is in me is more powerful than Satan who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Those in this world Satan uses may plunder and strip me of all my earthly possessions, but they can't take the good stuff, Christ in me--my eternal life!