“For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.” - Matthew 6:21
Righteousness and
covetousness have an inverse effect on one another. One tethers you to this world, and the other
liberates you from it. One invests you in the natural, and the other divests
you from the natural. What you fear to lose, is what you treasure. This is where your heart truly is.
In this temporal
world, when we live in the presence of something, we can begin to lose sight of
its value. The average American probably does not appreciate running
water like someone from a third world country who has never had it. We
take it for granted, we count on it as status quo and eventually, we are
discontented and covet something better.
The running water is not enough, it needs to be temperature
controlled. It needs to be in every part of the house, etc. However, just because it is a “standard of
living” does not mean that you treasure it.
On this point Jesus’s words pierce like a sword. The Pharisees loved the high seats, the show
of sacrifice, the long prayers. They were quick to display their
abundance of gain, and slow to relinquish it.
It was more than their standard of living; it was their treasure. When Jesus came, he stripped away all
that. He told everyone to give in
secret, pray in secret, and to humble themselves. He told to “lay not
up for yourselves treasure on earth.”
He brought salvation down to man and obliterated the need for a high
priest. In doing so, he ripped everyone
from the covetousness and drew them to righteousness. He commanded them to refocus their investment
of our greatest asset (time). To place
it not in things temporal, but in things eternal, because where your “treasure
is there will your heart be also.” The Pharisees did not take kindly
to this radical, so they had Him killed.
He preached a gospel that told them to abandon what they loved most, a
gospel that would strip away their treasure, but offer them a God’s treasures. Is it not the same today? We like our comforts, our pleasures, and our
way of life. We love our family, our
friends, and our future. Some of it is standard of living and creature
comforts, and some of it is treasures on earth (what cannot abandon will tell
you which is which). Jesus takes all
that (food, raiment, family, friends, etc.) and rolls it up into one word
“life.” He says: “lose your life.” Jesus calls us to abandon it, die to it, lay
it down and follow Him. If you do, if
you fall radically in love with Jesus Christ, then you will find life. When you treasure this world the heart clings
to it and you are drawn away from Christ.
When you break from the world and treasure heaven then your heart is in
Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will wreck
your life and give you life. He will
strip away the covetousness but grant righteousness.
To the carnal heart,
it is a great thing to lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, because
earth is the only treasure. Like the Pharisees, your heart will adamantly
reject the very notion of it and even seek to destroy it. However, when you are genuinely converted,
washed in the blood and sanctified by the Spirit; brought into that born-again
experience. It is a great delight to lay up treasure in heaven. You see this as wisdom as much as
righteousness. For, why would you put
treasure in this corruptible world? Have
you not seen how truly fragile this world is?
Why would you spend your precious time here gaining the things that are,
here? “For what is a man profited, if he gains the whole world, and
lose his own soul?”
