Wealth

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very sad because he had worked so hard for money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.
An angel heard his plea and said to him, "sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you."
The man implored the angel to speak to God to see if he might bend the rules. The man continued to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappeared and informed the man that God had decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathered his largest suitcase and filled it with pure gold bars and placed it beside his bed.
Soon afterwards the man died and arrived at the gates of Heaven to greet St Peter. St Peter, seeing the suitcase said, "hold on you can't bring that in here!"
But, the man explained to St Peter that he had permission and asked him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St Peter checked and came back saying, "You're right .You are allow one carry-on bag, But I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."
St Peter opened the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaimed, "You brought pavement?"

How to get the world right!

A father was having a day at home to look after his little boy because his wife was busy and needed help. The mother had gone out and the dad was using the kitchen table to try and get some paperwork done. As he worked away his little boy kept interrupting him and he was getting nowhere. He came up with a plan to keep his son busy and out of the way, in a magazine he found a picture, a map of the world, all the countries were named and he thought that this would make a good puzzle. He took the picture and tore it up into many tiny pieces and then told his little boy that if he could put it all back together properly he would give him some money for sweets.
The little boy went off and the man thought that he must have bought himself a quiet hour or so, but no, within 15 minutes the boy was back having successfully completed the task. The man had a look and the picture was perfect, all the countries were in the right place and not one piece was missing. "How in the world did you do that?" Asked the astonished dad. "Well dad, I didn't know where all the countries should go so I looked on the back and noticed there was a picture of a man. I thought this would be easier so made the picture of the man and placed the finished picture on a piece of card, then I placed another piece of card over the top of the picture and turned it over. When I removed the card, the picture of the world was complete. You see dad, I thought to myself, if I get the man right, then the world will come right!"

Jesus pointed out that the world would not change until peoples hearts changed, like the parable above tells us: "If you get the man right then the world will come right!"