2002-09-03 - Heart Treasure

Encore 1998-06-22

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

In 1474 a book was published titled, The Soul's Consolation. In this book each of the Ten Commandments were driven home by what was alleged to be a true story. The story given after the first commandment is about a man who loved temporal things. His great care in this world was the things of this world. He sought all he could own and possess. It happened that the man died and an autopsy was done on his body. The autopsy revealed that there was no heart in his body. His friends, knowing his character, ran to his storehouse of treasures, and there among all his possessions they found his bleeding heart. The moral: Where your treasure is, there also is your heart.

The above related story serves to remind us about worldly treasure. Earthly treasure is best viewed with the phrase, "you can't take it with you". The reality of this phrase plays out all around the world every day, every hour. "Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire..." (James 5:3) "Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but Righteousness delivers from death." (Proverbs 10:2)

Scripture says, Matthew 12:35, that the good man, from his good treasure, brings out what is good. So there is good treasure for us to store up and build upon.

To focus on things of an eternal nature is no easy task. We live, move, breath and function in a temporal world. The concept of eternal is really foreign to us. Everything we know and have contact with has had a beginning and will have an end. To think of storing up treasure for eternity is surely a difficult concept to fully grasp.

In 80 or so years, eternity will be the reality for everyone who reads this. There is no escaping this. How we live now matters. Let the world be hurried to gather great estates, let them fill their barns with grain, let the world display fine china that is to nice to use, but let the good heart, let the good soul, be filled with righteousness and the graces of the spirit.

"Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities." Robert Murray M'Cheyne

"Do not so contemplate eternity that you waste today." Vance Havner

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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