What do we 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

Most of life can seem like a pursuit of all that we can grab. There is so much out there that draws our attention to our wants and we have no issues going after it. Just a few years ago a good part of the world was going through an economic boom that seemed to catch up everyone in its power. Here is Ireland we called it the Celtic Tiger. The greed of those years has come back to bite us as we are now in tough times and many are suffering without work and with great debts.

Alas, moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal (I’ll ignore the temptation to make a political comment about thieves). We all know now that earthly treasures do not last. Those of us who are starting to get just a little long in the tooth can thing back to many possessions which were once important to us that now mean nothing. Most of the stuff I have owned and held important is now buried in a landfill someplace or has been recycled into a new product.

The verse tells us that the heart of the matter is, well, the heart.  If our hearts are set on all the stuff that is going to one day disappear that is what we pursue, even though it is all temporary. If our hearts are set on the stuff that can be destroyed or stolen our hope is a waste. It is a hard trap to get out of because most of us like our stuff. We like it a lot. In fact we might like it more than the eternal treasures.

In takes a heart procedure to change this. We need to decide what is really important.

It is a simple matter of a personal heart exam. If we examine our priorities today, if we look at what is really important, if we look at where we spend our money, what does it indicate about our hearts?