Are you storing up treasures on earth, or in heaven? Are you focused on the temporal or the eternal?
In Matthew 6, Jesus clarifies that our hearts will always follow after what we treasure. Was he talking about money? Chad Clark shares his insights with us today.
Chad Clark is the Executive Director of FaithFi: Faith & Finance.
It challenges us to evaluate what we treasure most. It's common for us to say that where our money is, there our hearts will be, and we can sometimes use this to encourage generosity. People can look at their checkbooks to see where their hearts are based. However, there's another way to look at the word “treasure,” which doesn't refer to physical treasure but more to what we value or devote ourselves to.
There are parallels between Matthew 6:21 and Matthew 13:44, where Jesus tells us the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field that a man found and covered up. Then, in his joy, he sells all he has and buys that field. Now, we see the word treasure here in both of these. But for this man in Matthew 13, nothing is more important, valuable, or glorious than this treasure he has discovered.
Jesus follows up this statement in Matthew 6:24, where he says:
“No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.”
Money is a terrible master, but it is a useful tool. Paul David Tripp puts it this way:
“Money is one of God's good creations. But a good thing becomes a bad thing when it becomes a ruling thing.”
So, the question we need to wrestle with today is, where is our treasure? Is our hope, joy, safety, satisfaction, and identity found in money, and are the things of this world in the person of Jesus?
When God is the treasure of our hearts, it completely changes how we view and use money. We see money as a tool for His glory and desire to faithfully steward what He has entrusted to us. That means that our financial decisions may look and probably should look very different from the rest of the world because we aren't here to build our kingdom, but His.
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