Treasures of the Heart

 

 

Scripture

 Matthew 6:19-21

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NRSVUE)

 

1 Timothy 6: 9-10

⁹ But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.  (NRSVUE)

Devotion

"You can't take it with you" is a phrase we hear a lot.  The idea, of course, is that we should not become attached to our worldly acquired wealth, because, our possessions cannot accompany us into the afterlife.  There are some who take this well-known phrase as permission to live it up and spend whatever we have now.  Others see it as warning that we need to get rid of all we have--as if they need to hit a certain number or percentage in order to receive treasures in heaven.

What, though, if Jesus is getting at something a bit different.  What if the heavenly treasures Jesus mentions are the kinds of things we build up in our hearts--treasures like compassion, love, and the joy that comes from cultivating supportive relationships?   Those things are lasting and cannot be stolen from us.  The only way we can lose those kind of treasures is if we cast them aside to focus on other things.

Wealth and possessions--in and of themselves-are not bad things.  The problem is what spiritual qualities we attain as we pursue, attain, and try to hold onto those worldly things. For the treasures we store in our hearts are the ones we will take with us to the afterlife.  If we waste our lives gathering up greed, envy,hardheartedness, and a self-serving attitude in our quest for material gain,  then those spiritual qualities that it what we will take with us when die; and our spirits will be poor indeed.  But if we go in the other direction--if we spend our spend our days storing up spiritual qualities like generosity, joy in other's people success,  compassion, and altruism--then we will discover our hearts are rich beyond measure.  Those are the riches that will go with us when we enter the Kin-dom of God.

Songwriter Tyler Childers says it best when he sings, "All you can take is the heart you've been tendin'"  So what have we been tending?  And is that really what we want to take with us?  If not, then its time to let go of all those harmful desire that lead us astray and start gathering up those spiritual attributes that are worth more than their weight in gold.   For those are the things that build relationships and strengthen our love of God and one another.  And those heavenly treasures are the ones that will last forever.

Prayer

Jesus, rid my heart of temptations so that I may cultivate and store up your true treasures.