Explore the Bible: January 4

Treasure • Matt. 6:19-34

By Carl M. White

Everybody has a treasure. Every treasure exerts a degree of power over you. Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives a warning about treasure. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:23 NASB). If you want to find where your heart is, find your treasure.

What does it mean to treasure something? To look at something, literally or figuratively, and have its beauty, meaning, and significance capture you. You begin to value it, which means you are willing to pay some sort of price to have it.

When you see something as the ultimate treasure of your life, then it is worth everything to you. Some people see their career as that ultimate treasure, others see their family, and still others a talent, an ability or a standard of living. If this one treasurer is somehow taken from you, your life may collapse.

In the fantasy novels “The Lord of the Rings,” there is a ring forged by elves with supernatural power. Everyone who comes into possession of it is gradually overpowered by it. Over centuries, each creature who possesses it begins to call it precious, my precious. It becomes all consuming. And everyone who possesses it feels a sense of overwhelming power, like nothing can stop them. They will kill for the ring. Slowly, each ring bearer is devoured by the ring.

This is what Jesus is speaking of in verses 19-24. In everyone’s heart there is something so precious you must have it, and it is worth everything. You will order your life to protect it at all costs. If your everything is not the Lord Jesus Christ, then moth and vermin can destroy it, and thieves can steal it. Thus, the Bible challenges us to make our ultimate treasure what moth and vermin cannot destroy, and thieves cannot steal.

I know this woman who had one son. After her divorce her ex-husband moved to another state. She would tell everyone that her son was her life. When the son reached the age to choose which parent to live with, he chose to live with his father. She was crushed.  

She placed a burden on her son that no child can bear. No child should ever have to bear the burden of being the sole reason for someone else’s life. It is a set up for disaster, especially for the parent. 

Whatever is your ultimate treasure, you are enslaved to it, and every ultimate treasure will at some point demand that you die for it, but not Jesus. Instead, Jesus is the one treasure that dies for you!

Here is where Jesus’ words about the eye as the lamp of the body and His words about trying to serve two masters come into play. “But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness” (vs. 23). If you see something and believe it should be the ultimate treasure of your life and it is not the Lord Jesus Christ, your life will eventually be filled with darkness. Having the wrong treasure leads to great darkness.

Jesus demands to be Lord of your life, and He will not compete against another lord. The reason is simple — you cannot serve two masters. Or to say it another way, you cannot have two ultimate treasures.

The next section, verses 25-34, talks about worry and anxiety, which is directly related to your ultimate treasure. If your treasure is inadequate, it can be taken from you, or diminish and fade away. Your anxiety level is going to be high. Jesus suggests we learn a lesson from nature. He says, “look at the birds of the air… ” (vs 26).  Though there is great complexity in nature the truth of this lesson is simple. With Jesus Christ and His kingdom as your ultimate treasure, everything else can be taken from you but your eternal security will remain.

So, instead of worrying, make him your ultimate treasure and then wait on Him. God wants you to accept His ordering of your life. He wants you to acknowledge that He knows best, so you can resign from the job as ruler of your life. Relax in Him and worrying subsides. Don’t relax in Him, and worry restricts your experience of Him.

To wait in the Lord first means to relax in Him. To wait on the Lord also means to have hope. When by faith you relax and expect hope, hope happens!  

White is a member of Pineview Church, Clinton.