Store Up Your Treasure in Heaven (Easter)

 

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

(Matthew 6:19-21)

 

What does it mean for something to be valuable?

Value is defined as, “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.”  When something is valuable, we often make an extra effort to take care of it because we believe that it’s special. Things like houses or cars or diamonds are often thought of as valuable because they cost a lot of money. However, value is more than how much money something is worth. We all have things that are special to us that we would be incredibly sad to lose. Your favorite stuffed animal that you sleep with every night or the toy that your grandmother gave you might not be worth anything to someone else, but to you that thing is priceless – it’s valuable. So, value can be how much we pay for something, but the most valuable things are the ones that we personally care about.

 

What does this mean for me?

God sees you as something special that He doesn’t want to lose. You are His valuable treasure, and He personally cares about you. Even on your worst day, He thinks good thoughts about you and has good plans for your life (Jeremiah 29:11).

Because God loves you so much, He takes care of everything you need. There is nothing that He is unable to provide for you - His valuable treasure.  James 1:17 tells us that “every good and perfect gift is from above.” This means that everything good that we have in life – our houses, our clothes, our food, our family, even the air we breathe – are all gifts from God.

As much as we enjoy the physical gifts that God gives us, the greatest gift He’s ever offered us is the opportunity to be His friend (John 15:14). The Creator of time and the universe and all of the good things in it wants to talk to you and spend time with you, just like your friends on earth do. He wants this relationship with you so much that He sent His only son to die so that it would be possible (John 3:16).

The Bible tells us that sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2). This is because God is Holy, meaning He’s perfectly good. He does not do evil things or think evil thoughts. Everything about Him is good. We, on the other hand, often do sinful things. Even when we don’t mean to do something that we shouldn’t, it’s still sin because it’s the opposite of being perfectly good as God is.

God made us and He knows that we aren’t capable of being perfect. The Bible doesn’t explain what sin is so that you feel bad about yourself. We’re simply told what sin is so that we know and understand that there’s a problem that we need to ask God to help us fix.

No matter how much we do wrong, God still wants to be with us, which is why He sent Jesus to die for our sins. When you choose to believe that Jesus died so that you could be forgiven for your sins, and you choose not to do sinful things anymore because you love Him, then you will no longer be separated from God. He will consider you His friend, and for the rest of your life He will work all things for your good (Romans 8:28).

 

What do I do when this is difficult?

Sometimes we consider certain belongings to be so valuable that we are willing to hurt other people with our words or actions when those things get lost or broken. We choose to be sinful with what we say or do because we care more about worldly things (our “stuff”) than we do about behaving like God’s friend. It’s not that God wants us to be happy that something we care about is gone, it’s just that He wants us to recognize that His greatest gift, the opportunity to be His friend, is worth more than stuff that can get broken.

Matthew 6:19-21 tells us to lay up our treasure in heaven, not earth. This doesn’t mean that God does not want us to have what we need or things that we enjoy. He’s the one who said that He would provide for us. He’s the one who made the beautiful beaches and mountains. He’s the one who gave people the intelligence to design houses and airplanes and your favorite game. What the verse does mean is that we have to understand that worldly things are temporary, meaning even our absolute favorite belongings won’t last forever. What is permanent, forever, is eternity with Him in Heaven if we choose to be His friend.

Conclusion

God loves you infinitely more than you love your favorite plushie or your favorite toy or even your family. He made you with His own hands so that He could know you and love you, and so that you could remind other people that He wants to know and love them too. It’s okay to enjoy the gifts that God allows us to have on this earth, but we should never forget that they are, in fact, gifts from Him. He is the giver of eternal life, and our friendship with Him is worth more than anything that He allows us to have on earth.  

 

Prayer

The most important choice that we can ever make is to ask Jesus to forgive for our sins and help us to live a life that builds friendship with God.

Father, thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for my sins. I understand that without Him, I would be separated from you forever. Help me to turn away from behavior that does not honor you and to live my life in way that builds my friendship with you. Thank you for giving me your mercy and forgiveness, and help me to show others that your mercy and forgiveness is for them too.  Amen