WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

Where Your Treasure Is . . .

Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight. I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end. I hate those with divided loyalties, but I love your instructions.

Psalm 119:111-113

Lately corporations seem intent on squeezing more work out of every person on the job. While technology has led to rapid gains, some of the gains have simply come from loading people with more and more responsibility, making them run like mice on a wheel. If you are an employee, there may not be much you can do about it. But some of us bring this kind of pressure on ourselves by the choices we make.

As the pastor of a large church, Jim Cymbala says that he sometimes sees people in his congregation who are working two or three jobs to get ahead. “They are going to expand their business,” he says, “make money for a rainy day, or buy a rental property here or a little side business there, and their assets will grow even faster. Yes, it means missing church on Sunday and missing time with their kids, but they use the old saying ‘Mama didn’t raise no fool, you know.’ In a little while, they tell me, their schedule will lighten up so they can give more attention to the Word and prayer, their service for the Lord, their marriage, their child-raising responsibility . . . soon, but not yet. At the moment, they have to virtually kill themselves for the almighty dollar.”

Cymbalta isn’t faulting those of us who have no choice but to work more than one job. He is only pointing out the importance of priorities. Scripture says, “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:21). A reasonable paraphrase might go like this: “Wherever your treasure is, there your time and money will also be.”

To seek and find more of God’s peace means we need to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves to discover what we really treasure. If we find that our treasure gauge—our measure of what is most valuable in life—is malfunctioning, we have only to turn to God and ask him to help us reorder our priorities.

Lord, I want you to be first, not second, third, or fourth. First, in the way, I order my time, money, goals, and desires. Let everything in my life be evidence of my single-hearted intention to live for you.