People love games. Some love to watch. Some love to participate. In America, games are a multibillion dollar industry. From sports to gambling to video games to board games, people are hooked on games. They are great entertainment! Some people even look at life as the “game of life.”

But what do you really have after the final buzzer – after the final card or the final throw of the dice? You have a fleeting satisfaction you won, a memory, a disappointment, a “better luck next time.”

Pastor and author John Ortberg tells a story about when he was just a kid, his grandmother loved to play Monopoly. Every time they played, she would clean him out of all the properties and money. She was a vicious player I had a grandfather like that playing checkers with me. He loved to wipe me out, especially when he could get in a multiple jump on me.

John’s grandmother was just like this in Monopoly. However, John’s grandmother would always encourage him not to give up, telling him that someday he would learn to play the game.

One summer, a new kid moved in next door and John found out that this kid was a whiz at Monopoly. So he and John became best friends and played the game all summer long. Finally, John’s grandmother came for a visit in the fall. When John saw her, he asked her if she wanted to play Monopoly. Of course, she did. Her face lit up and her eyes got narrow and she said, “You’re on!”

By the end of the game, practice had paid off and John had totally wiped her out. He had all the property and stacks of money and gloated of his accomplishment. While John was adding up all his assets and money, his grandmother said to him, “John, now that you have learned to play the game, let me tell you something about life. Just remember, when it is all over, everything goes back in the box.”

Have you ever noticed that whenever life is over, the funeral has ended, all the assets, all the money, all the accomplishments and success; it all goes back in the box (back into the world’s circulation). No one has ever taken it with them into the beyond.

So, what are we left with when we stand before the Lord? We are not left with all that we have acquired in life, or all our accomplishments and successes. We are left with what we are; what we have become; what we have done with Christ in our life. We are left with those things that have been produced by our life with Christ, we are left with eternal rewards based on what we have done for eternity, not for ourselves in the previous life.

Without Christ, we are left with nothing. We left it all behind and all of it went back in the box. We are left empty and wanting. It doesn’t have to be that way. Find your life and relationship in Christ and you will be all you were meant to be. That is something you can take with you!

Dan Wiese is the pastor of the John Day Church of the Nazarene.