Mark 8:34-36

And when he (Jesus) had called the people unto him with his disciples also,
he said unto them,
Whosoever will come after me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it;
but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's,
the same shall save it.
For what shall it profit a man,
if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?
 
NOTE:  This illustration was related to our church by one of our pastors...

Seems there was an extremely rich man and as he was getting older, he decided to ask God if he would be able to take some of his worldly riches to heaven with him.  Well, the answer, of course, was No.... But he continued to plead and finally he was given permission to bring one suitcase with him when he died.  Boy, was he excited!  So to prepare for the event, he decided to cash in all his riches and invest all his money into solid gold bricks...  He was so proud of this extremely rare and rich collection of pure gold.  Well, when the day came for him to leave this earth, he showed up at heaven's gate.  The angel greeting him said. "You can't bring that suitcase with you".  He responded, "Oh yes I can... just ask the Father".  So sure enough the angel came back and said, "I guess you were right, but I have to look at the contents first".  So the very rich man opened his suitcase and showed the angel all the gold bricks he had...  The angel, with a puzzled look on his face said to the man,  "Why would you want to bring a bunch of paving stones with you?"