“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” – Luke 12:34
Young people sometimes like to play games which involve a lot of activity. One of these games is what we call a “Treasure-Hunt.” Such a treasure-hunt calls for seeking, looking and desiring to find the desired “treasure.” Upon such finding, they have set their sole attention and they desire to find it first, so that they may claim the found object.
However, this treasure is perhaps not what they set their heart upon; it is only a game, a bit of excitement, a bit of fun.
Jesus is speaking in Luke 12:34 of what is dead serious. He is talking of the heart from whence are the issues of life. As a man’s heart is, so is the man. The pure in heart shall see God. Opposite of a pure heart is what the Bible calls an evil heart, an impure heart from whence comes only that which is impure and a transgression of God’s holy law. There are certain fruits by which a heart is known as to its spiritual character. A good heart trusts God as a heavenly Father. We often make sinful excuses for our bad heart, our unbelieving heart, which is such in us that we are of little faith, so that we fret and worry concerning the simple necessities of life, and anxiously ask; “What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” Now this is the real question of paramount importance for the world, which lives without God and without hope in the world. God is not in all their thoughts in these problems. But thus it should not be with us, covenant young people.
We live in days of planning, a planned economy. As covenant youth, you live in days of preparing for life’s calling, choosing a wife or husband. And then you look into the future and you say to each other, “We don’t have any money, but we have each other and love!” But did you say to each other, “We don’t have any money, not much at least, but we have a Father in heaven, who cares for us?” Do you place your trust in the heavenly Father, who cares for you and makes your needs His care? Unless you do this, you will have anxious cares. Is God your great treasure, and are all your treasures in Christ Jesus? If they are, then you will seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these things will be added unto you! Where is your treasure? There will your heart be.
Do you believe that we belong to the “little flock” of God in the world, the church of God among the hundreds of millions who do not know God? Do you know that in all the great and wide universe there is a little planet called “earth,” and on that place called “earth” God gathers His Church, His Israel, whom He loves in sovereign elective grace? God, too, has a “treasure.” We read in Exodus 19:5, “And now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine.” Yes, this peculiar people are kings and priests unto God. God has placed this love-note also in the Psalms. We read in Psalm 135:4, “For the LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure.” Now if it is true, that where our treasure is there our heart will be, then that is true in us because that is true in God. That is an eternal spiritual principle. And, therefore, Jesus says unto us, “Fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give to us the kingdom. Luke 12:32.” We need not fear that the Lord will not provide for us. And in trusting in our heavenly Father’s love and care, we can safely and contently gather treasures in heaven and not on the earth. For, young people, you are little sheep in that flock of God, the congregation of Jesus Christ.
Now, where is your “heart?” Is it in that flock which is God’s treasure in all the universe, above the universe? Are you walking in spiritual readiness of hope for an eternal place in that kingdom of heaven? Jesus says, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself, and make them sit down at meat, and will come forth and serve them.” Yes, Jesus Himself shall serve us at the heavenly banquet.
Where is your heart? Where is mine?
Do we live for self, treasuring treasures to ourselves, or are we gathering treasures in heaven, seeking the kingdom and His righteousness? That means that we sell what we have and give “alms.” We think of the poor and needy, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. We gather treasures in heaven by scattering to the poor. Thus the Psalmist says, “He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth forever; his horn shall be exalted with honor.” (Psalm 112:9, II Cor. 9:8-15) This is a difficult lesson for us to learn and take to heart. It is a profound lesson that we live by dying to self.
We must heed the warning of Jesus, “Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” We must have a single eye and not an evil eye, which never sees things right, but always makes everything dark. That is the trouble with the whole world which is not a part of the “little flock.” No, there is not a certain “common grace” of God which makes this evil world see a bit single, seeking the kingdom of heaven. The unregenerate world cannot see the kingdom of heaven. Now we must beware that we are not like that world. That world has natural light, glimmerings of it, to be sure. But that world uses this light and holds the truth down in unrighteousness, and thus becomes inexcusable before God. They do not put their trust in God and help the poor, and “provide bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heaven that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.” Where is your heart, and where is mine? Are we seeking treasures on earth, here where all things are subjected to vanity and corruption and not set in the service of God and of His kingdom? The gospel must be preached, the church and the ministry and schools must be maintained, alms must be given to the poor.
Where our treasure is, there will our heart be!