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“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.“ (Matt 6:21 NIV84) [see these verses in their context below]
What do you treasure?
What is most valuable to you? There are both emotional answers and practical ones.
When we are young, ambitions and dreams tend to be what we treasure. This changes as we mature with life experience. As we age, what we treasure may be quite different than in our younger years.
Perhaps a more important question is—What or who governs our heart? Are we driven by internal needs or desires or do external pressures and expectations press on us?
I believe this is a great dilemma for western Christians in the 21st century. Christian believers in western nations, especially Americans in the US, have access to great wealth, medical care, and stable governments in a greater way than in much of the world.
Many of us literally have more than we know what to do with, so we store the excess in closets, thousands of storage units, or sell it online or in our neighborhoods.
And yet, all this abundance doesn’t make us strong in faith. Our great abundance seems to have the opposite effect. But why?
We tend to trust in and value the abundance we have and this displaces our trust in God.
Rather than contentment, abundance can breed discontent, especially when our abundance, comfort, and sense of security are disrupted in some way.
What do you think might displace your trust in God?
Insights to consider
The old saying, “home is where your heart is,” indicates how our soul or inner being is what anchors our life. All the positive thinking in the world doesn’t change hearts. It can be beneficial for changing behavior, at least for a little while, but it won’t change the course of our life in a permanent way.
What we value, what we consider as treasure does determine the course of our life. If it’s wealth, then we are driven to gain and maintain more of it. The same applies to what value we assign to comfort, security, and even family.
Most everyone thinks they need or could use more money or a better job, house, vehicle, computer, and so on. But the truth is, even more, is never enough.
Countless rich people are a testimony of this. I grew up in a very wealthy area and went to school with kids from wealthy families. All their wealth didn’t seem to bring contentment or happiness. When I visited their homes and got to know their families, I saw the opposite.
A young family in our church who had considerable wealth gave me further insight into the dilemma of having enough. The husband told me that the more they gained and owned, the more he had to insure and maintain. What they possessed seemed to possess them and required more wealth to maintain it all.
Insurance companies tout their commitment to insure almost anything. Of course, all that protection comes with a cost. Many people have security cameras and systems for their homes and businesses but it all costs money and requires time and attention to monitor this security.
The question is—
Does having more bring contentment and peace to our hearts?
Or, is what we desire and long for in this world too elusive to be gained and kept?
Even family can be overvalued in a certain sense. Susan and I place a high value on our family. Susan is always looking for opportunities to get all of our family together in one place at one time. But during this time of social distancing and self-quarantine, we’re not able to present with all our family and close friends.
When we made the commitment to move halfway around the globe for missions work, we let our oldest son stay in the US for his senior year in high school. As typical, some people criticized us for leaving him while we moved to the Philippines, while others felt we were putting our family at risk by moving overseas.
Those that criticized didn’t understand our hearts. They didn’t know what we treasured most and their wrong assumptions were based on their viewpoint. As much as we treasured our family, our highest priority was the Lord, His calling for us, and His kingdom. Our family understood that then as they do now.
True Faith
Why is it difficult for us to accept and abide by what Jesus says about treasures on earth and what we treasure in our hearts?
We live in a material world. What we know best is what we can see and touch. Earthly or material treasures don’t last forever. They are temporal. Reason tells us what Jesus says is true but do our hearts agree?
Here’s what seems to hang us up. Our daily lives are temporal. Life on earth is not guaranteed to last. In fact, our life can be cut short by some unexpected and unavoidable accident or event. Lives end too soon because of cancer and other diseases, including the current coronavirus pandemic.
How much more so is this true for material possessions and wealth? The current pandemic is also causing an economic crisis and we won’t know for a while if and how it will be resolved.
We may know this in our heads but our hearts often don’t follow sound reason. This is the crux of what Jesus is saying about earthly treasures and whatever else we may value.
Our hearts cling to what we actually value and treasure and this is what anchors our life whether we realize it or not.
It’s a matter of trust. A matter of faith. What do we put our faith in? Ourselves and our resources? Or, God?
Are we trusting in what we have or think we need or in the Lord? What we genuinely treasure in our hearts will tell us. A heart filled with faith sees beyond the temporariness of things, wealth, and even life as we know it on earth.
When our heart is filled with trust in God, what we treasure and value changes from what is temporal and won’t last to what is eternal and lasting.
What are the treasures of your heart?
Reflection—
Our hearts cling to what we actually value and treasure and this is what anchors our life whether we realize it or not. A heart filled with faith sees beyond the temporariness of things, wealth, and even life as we know it on earth.
Prayer Focus—
Sorting out what we really value and treasure in our hearts is a daily need. Ask the Lord, each day and throughout a day, what might be misplacing your trust in Him. When He reveals this to you, repent. How? Seek the Lord in prayer and choose to praise and worship Him as you reset your heart on what is eternal.
Devo Scripture Text
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
(Matthew 6:19-34 NIV84)