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Lesson 13 of the Discipleship Making process.
I left you last time with this question, “How hard should a person work to gain treasure?”
Read: Matthew 6:19-23
The Commands:
1. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth.
2. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Jesus continues the Sermon on the Mount by talking about treasure, precious things and not ordinary things. He is not talking about the necessities of life. Generally, the things you need are being used on a regular basis; therefore moth and rust do not destroy them because they are not sitting idle. And thieves don’t normally risk breaking in somewhere to take things that are not valuable. For example, thieves may break in and steal money but usually won’t take your undershirt.
Jesus’ next command forces the disciples to think on a little deeper level. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. This presents a few problems. The ancients, from commoner to Pharaoh, had precious things buried with them for the afterlife. But these things all remain in the earth to this day. How then will the disciples get their treasures from earth to heaven?
A second problem comes to mind. In the first command it appeared that He didn’t want them to be accumulators or hoarders of treasure, but now He tells them that is exactly what He wants them to do. It seems it is just a matter of where He wants them to store the treasure. But what good are gold, silver, precious jewels in heaven? Surely Jesus must be talking about more than these things. The treasures in heaven must have eternal value.
These are the eternal treasures that are alluded to throughout the Scripture: Faith is likened unto gold, hope to silver, and precious jewels to love. Faith like gold is refined by fire. Hope like silver needs to be purified by removing the dross. And love like precious jewels comes in all kinds of sizes, shapes, and colors.
Jesus concludes the two commands with the core issue “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” He wants His disciples to understand that a person has a choice to value temporal or eternal things. And whichever they choose, that is what they will work for.
Can a person see that things such as: faith, hope and love which last forever are of more value than gold, silver, and precious jewels which are temporal? According to Jesus it depends on the kind of eye an individual has. Either it is good or evil, clear or bad, or full of light or full of darkness. The eye sees what the heart values!
The spirit that is controlling a person determines whether he is generous or stingy. It takes faith in God, hope for eternal rewards, and love for others to be generous.
The point of the lesson is, choose your treasure and store it in the appropriate place.
With that, allow me to leave you with this question to consider, along with a little homework assignment until my next posting:
How will you judge others?
. . . and the homework assignment . . .
Read: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 – Live It!
Until next time . . . Godspeed!
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