Unclaimed entitlements

Talk about "Left Behind." Our church lost-and-found closet is overflowing with unclaimed items, mostly Bibles. (Gosh, the owners must be using their other Bibles for daily devotions.)

But that's nothing. Then there is "escheat." That's unclaimed money the government is holding because you forgot to pick it up, forgot it was yours and you were entitled to it. These resources sitting in mothballs while you scurry frantically to make ends meet include the following:

Uncashed checks and money orders, non-refunded deposits, bank accounts and safety deposit boxes you forgot you had, insurance and retirement benefits, abandoned stocks, matured and unredeemed savings bonds, undelivered tax refunds, unclaimed trust fund payments, unpaid retirement benefits, unpaid distributions to creditors, lost securities accounts, unpaid Social Security, of VA benefits. A conservative estimate puts it at $30 billion owed to 80 million owners, held in the "protective custody" of the government.

But that's nothing. Then there are all the unclaimed gifts Christ purchased for us at the cost of blood. Some of these we haven't claimed because the churches we belong to don't tell us we are entitled to them. But come on, we have Bibles (if we get them out of the lost-and-found) and we can read for ourselves. There is more of the Spirit to be had. There are gifts waiting to be claimed (1 Corinthians 14:1), wisdom for the asking (James 1:5), mountains waiting to be moved (Matthew 17:20), harvest waiting to be picked (Matthew 9:38), Revival that will come if we get on our knees.

Zelophehad's daughters would not have gotten a square inch of the Promised Land if they had not asked (Numbers27). "You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2). Come and get it.