In Matthew 16:19-20(NLT), Jesus Christ tells us, “19 Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” It is very interesting that Jesus Christ specifically teaches on treasures of the heart, because all human beings desire treasures. We are all very different, and we each want different blessings for different reasons, but the thing that we have in common is that we want to live a blessed existence. Jesus Christ tells us very clearly in Matthew 16:19 that a blessed existence springs forward from the contents of our hearts. If we treasure the right things, we will receive an outcome in life that is aligned with the right things that we treasure. By the same token, if we treasure the wrong things in life, our outcomes will be as Christ has said; we will have a treasure that is continually stolen from us or it is corrupt. God doesn’t want this for His children, and it is why we must take the time to really examine what we’re treasuring in our hearts.
Many people are in a very dangerous position today because they are treasuring the wrong things. In Luke 12, Jesus Christ teaches us about this through a man that asked him to intervene in a disagreement he was having with his brother. In Biblical days, inheritances went from father to son. Daughters were not permitted access to their father’s wealth. When a daughter became old enough, according to the standards of the time, she would be in a pressure-driven race to be joined in marriage to someone her father would approve as a worthy husband. If she was not in a position to marry, she would remain under her father’s care, and in the event of her father’s death, an older brother or relative might become her benefactor; but she could not receive her father’s inheritance.
This set of circumstances was completely different for a son. In the event of the father’s death, the eldest son would inherit whatever wealth the father left behind. This was the case in Luke 12:13. A younger brother called out from a crowd of people, petitioning Jesus to intervene regarding the inheritance his father had left to his older brother. The younger brother thought part of it should have been shared with him, and he said to Jesus Christ in Luke 12:13, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.”
One can imagine this was a subject that had been eating away at the younger brother and had consumed a great deal of this thoughts and energy. He had worried about it, and indeed his actions that day tell us about what this young man was treasuring in his heart. He wanted a share of his father’s inheritance and felt justified that he had every right to demand it. So much so, that he asked Jesus, our Lord and Savior, to use his righteous influence and settle the matter.
Of course, our Redeemer knew the young man’s heart, and he knew exactly where his treasure was. The young man wanted God to judge his brother’s actions, but he had refused to look at his own heart or consider that he was the one in need of straightening out. Jesus Christ said to him in Luke 12:14-15(NLT), “14 Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” 15 Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”
God created the human heart to store all kinds of goodies. Spiritually, you and I have the capacity to lay up and dole out treasures from heaven based on what we are carrying in our hearts. If we are storing up treasures that please God, we can freely give out of the abundance of what has been so freely given to us. If we store up a good treasury in our hearts, we will produce good things out of that treasury. Jesus Christ said in Luke 6:45(NLT), “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” A good heart produces good things for the Kingdom of God, because He will multiply that which is good, and it will be stored in heaven. But sometimes there is something in our hearts that keeps us from producing good. This is an issue we must address.
Jesus Christ very plainly told the man in Luke 12:14 that when the motivation is not God’s inheritance or the commission of Christ, it is of this world, and nothing of this world is part of the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ did not encourage this man to keep on seeking worldly things but told him to guard his heart against them. Life is to be lived in the Spirit, and our hearts must be convinced of this requirement to the point where living in Christ is our greatest joy.
Especially during the time in which we’re now living, we need to examine our hearts and ask ourselves why we are not living in the unity of love and purpose that God prepared for us. Why are we focusing our efforts so fervently on other pursuits, but not focusing on the intimacy in our relationship with God? Our challenge, particularly at this time, is to walk in step with the Lord Jesus Christ and lay up as many treasures in heaven as we possibly can. The road ahead will not always be smooth, and we can’t afford to have anything blocking our blessings or blocking our hearts from producing good things for God’s Kingdom. We must be diligent to examine our hearts, and if there’s anything in them that doesn’t please God, we need to release it so we can receive all that He has in store for our lives.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Producing Good Things for God’s Kingdom” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!