February 9, 2002

WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21, NKJV).

"The love of money was the ruling passion in the Jewish age. Worldliness usurped the place of God and religion in the soul. So it is now. Avaricious greed for wealth exerts such a fascinating, bewitching influence over the life that it results in perverting the nobility and corrupting the humanity of men until they are drowned in perdition. The service of Satan is full of care, perplexity, and wearing labor, and the treasure men toil to accumulate on earth is only for a season.

"Jesus said, 'Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'- It is for your own interest to secure heavenly riches. These alone, of all that you possess, are really yours. The treasure laid up in heaven is imperishable. No fire or flood can destroy it, no thief despoil it, no moth or rust corrupt it; for it is in the keeping of God.

"This treasure, which Christ esteems as precious above all estimate, is 'the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints' (Ephesians 1:18). The disciples of Christ are called His jewels, His precious and peculiar treasure. He says, 'They shall be as the stones of a crown' (Zechariah 9:16). 'I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir' (Isaiah 13:12). Christ looks upon His people in their purity and perfection as the reward of all His sufferings, His humiliation, and His love, and the supplement of His glory--Christ, the great Center, from whom radiates all glory...

"Where the treasure is, there the heart will be. In every effort to benefit others, we benefit ourselves... At the final day, when the wealth of earth shall perish, he who has laid up treasure in heaven will behold that which his life has gained."--Thoughts From The Mount Of Blessing, pp., 88-91.