Where is Your Treasure?

Don’t pile up treasures of earth, where moth and rust can spoil them and thieves can break in and steal.  But keep your treasure in Heaven where there is neither moth nor rust to spoil it, and nobody can break in and steal.  For wherever your treasure is, your heart will be there too!

Matthew 16:19-20

I was mowing my back yard last evening when I noticed a young man – maybe 24 years old, ambling down the street smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone.  A few moments later, he was back from another direction, and was walking toward my neighbor’s fence, where the gate was standing ajar.  The young man stepped into the back yard and looked around, then shut the gate securely.  At this point, I expected him to walk away.  But he went up to the front door and rang the doorbell.  There were no cars in the driveway, and his ringing inquiry brought no result.  After a few more glances around the property, he walked away.

A short time later, the young man was back, still talking on his cell phone.  He walked up to the mailbox of the house, blocking the view from the street as to what he was doing, and appeared from the back to be examining something – presumably the mail.  A couple of furtive glances around finally caused me to think, “Ok – I don’t think you are up to anything good.”  I slipped in the house for my cell phone, and called the police.  If the young man was contemplating either stealing the mail or breaking into the house, at least someone would have reported suspicious behavior in the neighborhood.

If your life is tied up in your prized possessions and your monetary worth, it is a universal truth that all of it can be gone in a second.  If someone really wants to take your stuff, they will find a way to accomplished it.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with having lovely things and being well-off financially.  What is at issue is whether you own it, or it owns you.

When a good, wealthy young man came to Jesus to ask what he should do to gain eternal life, He told him to give up all his stuff and to come with Him as a disciple.  That encounter produced two sorrowful people:  the young man, because he could not give up the things that he had; and Jesus, who grieved for the man's choice because He “loved him.”  There is nothing on this earth—possessions, wealth, fame or power—which should separate us from wholeheartedly following the Savior.  He owns everything anyway. We are simply stewards of His great riches.