Where your treasure is will be where your heart is - Matt. 6:21

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, had much great teaching for his disciples.  He so wanted them to be able to carry on the work after His few short years of ministry.  He knew that they were as vulnerable to the flesh as were the unbelievers.  He wanted them to know the joy of not acquiring things, but to "store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...".  Vicki Courtney in the EVER AFTER Bible study says the word "store" means "to live from day to day as to increase either the bitterness or the happiness of one's consequent lot".  In other words, what we store up is what determines "our emotional state".  She says to ask yourself this question:  what dictates your mood?  Isn't it usually what we get or don't get - in physical things, in friendship, in support, in ambition?  I can be so focused on something that I see nothing happening around me but the single vision of my goal.

So what does it mean to seek treasure in heaven?  I think the Christian group King & Country come pretty close to defining it in "Fix My Eyes":

Love like I'm not scared

Give when it's not fair

Live life for another

Take time for a brother

Fight for the weak ones

Speak out for freedom

Find faith in the battle

Stand tall but above it all

Fix my eyes on You

On You

 

What has captured your heart today?  We settle for the cheap imitations when the vast good of heaven is offered to us.  Listen to C.S. Lewis in THE WEIGHT OF GLORY:

 

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and

sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant

child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he

cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

 

I'm going to go see if I can't give a few things away.  How about you?

 

For further study:  Deu. 6:5, 1 Sam. 16:7, Job 22:21-22, Psalm 119:11, Proverbs 4:20-23, Isaiah 33:6, Jonah 2:8, Luke 6:45, Col. 2:2-3, Hebrews 11:24-26.

 

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

 

Love,

Holly