For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21
“God owns everything and is our sole Provider. If we correctly grasp that God’s role is to provide and our role is to manage what He gives us, then we create in ourselves, in our actions, a sense of anticipatory dependency. We take the posture of a trusting child in relationship to our Father for the next good gift.
When our minds are occupied with thoughts of how to best use God’s gifts to advance His kingdom, our hearts naturally follow (see Matthew 6:21). If we are storing up treasure here on earth by considering our bank accounts as our source of power, respect, and salvation, our hearts will move surreptitiously away from God.
God has given us money to show us where our idols lie and to force us to make a decision on where we want our heart to go. The very use of the thing that risks becoming our idol can instead be the chief indicator of our Christian faith.”
Nicholas Breach of Compass – Finances God’s Way in his three-page essay “What does your savings account say about your heart?” in Purposeful Living: Financial Wisdom for All of Life compiled and edited by Gary G. Hoag and Tim Macready (Rhodes, NSW: Christian Super, 2018) 76-78. Click on the title to download this free ebook today.
How we use money reveals our idols or serves as the chief indicator of our faith. When we obey Jesus and store up treasures in heaven, our heart follows and we live with “anticipatory dependency.” When, instead, we ignore the command of Jesus not to store up treasures here on earth, our hearts “move surreptitiously away from God.”
I confess, I had to look up “surreptitiously” as I did not know its definition. It means “in a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention; secretively.” So, when we store up wealth on earth (which is what I did for about 40 years), we become a slave to the very thing we think we own. It’s true.
When we read words like “idols” we think of graven images. We tell ourselves that we go to church, worship God, and don’t bow to any statues, so we are good. Not so fast. It’s better to think of idols as anything we serve or in which we place our trust. If we store up treasures on earth, the bank account is testimony against us (see James 5:2).
The reason Jesus said to put our treasures in heaven is that, as Breach rightly notes, where our treasures go, our hearts go. Giving does not earn salvation, but it is a “chief indictor” of authentic faith (see 2 Corinthians 8:24). Where are your treasures? I ask not because I don’t want your heart to drive surreptitiously away from God.
Don’t choose to live differently from the world because I say so. Do it because you realize depending on God is way better than trusting in yourself. Do it because you have a faithful Father and you want Him to see you as a “trusting child” who is ready to use faithfully whatever God supplies to advance God’s kingdom.