“…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (v. 21)
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (v. 24)
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most profound sections of Holy Scripture. Jesus preaches to the people of that day (and, by extension, to us) about some of the stickiest issues of the human condition. The issue of our relationship with money is one of the most problematic. Paul put it this way, “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). That passage in Timothy, as well as our current text in Matthew, gets to the very “heart” of that issue, which is actually the human heart. In short, we all love our treasure. The problem is not really with love or even with treasure; the problem is loving the wrong treasure. Jesus says that we cannot serve both God and wealth. You must be devoted to something, and if you choose to be devoted to God, you cannot also love money. Notice that money itself is not the problem in any of these texts but the “love” of money. You don’t have to be poor to love Jesus, but if your drive is storing wealth, then your heart is probably in the wrong place.
What is most fascinating is that you can’t have it both ways. If you love wealth, then Jesus says you actually hate Him. Go back and read that last sentence once more, and then read Matthew 6:24 again. If you are devoted to one, then you are despising the other. Jesus will not share the Lordship of your life with another, even your bank account. Your heart will be wherever your treasure is, so you must treasure Jesus above all else. Your love for Him should be so grand that all things are despised by comparison. How do you spend your time? How important is wealth? What do you meditate on the most? If you think more about your next investment than you do about Him or His word, then your priorities are skewed. Money is necessary; for some, it is their work, but be careful it does not become your love; devotion to anything else is dangerous.
