Print This PostBuried treasure
Where is your heart? Where your treasure is. What do you treasure? That is where your heart resides. How do you know what you treasure? Lots of questions. Important questions. The answers reveal a lot. To me. To you. About our hearts, and how important they are to God.
Jesus was not one who minced his words. He said what he meant, and meant what he said. Yet, he also had a way of burying the bone and making us dig for it. Sort of like digging for buried treasure. “I know it’s down there. I dug the hole exactly three steps to the left of the old oak tree!” Ever put something important somewhere and gone back later and couldn’t find it? I have. Many times. You would think that if it were that important, I would have written it down, made a note, drawn a map. Never fails. I don’t think about the future importance of something until I’m IN the future.
OK, here’s the point. I think that one of the implications of what Jesus was saying here in the famous talk on the side of a hill (Matt 5-7), was the value of our heart, which IS the treasure. The problem most of the people on the side of the hill had is the same problem you and I have, we place importance on the things that rust and break and pass away. And we end up becoming like the things we treasure. While all along, the most important thing, our hearts, the real treasures, end up buried and we can’t remember where.
Got some good news! I found a map! To buried treasure! Lots and lots of it. Whoo-EEE! That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Honest to goodness real treasure. The map starts at “In the beginning, God….”, or if you prefer, “Once upon a time….” Either way, you get to be a part of a great adventure, a costly battle, a rescue mission, a treasure hunt. Along the way, we are going to run into saints and sinners, devils and angels, miracles and catastrophes. This all happens under the watchful gaze of the same Jesus who sat on a hillside 2,000 years ago and tried to get us to listen as he shared the only opinion that counts about where to find the only thing worth treasuring forever. Our hearts.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Prov. 4:23
