Promise Seven To Bless Your Treasure

Yey, we've moved beyond worry. We've been clothed and fed. We kicked anxiety right into powerful prayer. We rested! Now, it seems, we go to the Bank. Yes! Finally! Money! Or is it?

Promise Seven
Matthew 6:19-21
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and wehre thieves do not break in and steel. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Okay, earthly bank accounts aren't quite the focus. This is more of a heart-thing.
Really, what the Lord is saying is: "It's not the economy, Stupid!" (Sorry, I took a little license there.) We zero in or zero out on what happens to our checkbooks and IRAs, forgetting that it is all going to go up in smoke. Some of it probably has already. "My lands," you say. "What am I going to retire on?" You just forgot that God promised to clothe, feed, and house you. Oops!

Look, you must ask yourself where your heart is. Is it here, or is it there? Have you found that you can actually trust the Lord in all things? Has his love so penetrated your thought process that you can't think of much of anything beyond being with him? If so, that's your treasure. You see, we long to latch onto something of value, even great value. We're built for it. But sin has tainted us to the point that we attribute value to the wrong things. Jesus knew this, and that is why he took out the cloth and spray bottle and cleaned the fog away from our eyes.

The ONLY thing of eternal value is our love for Jesus. From that love flows all the good things that bring us real peace and happiness. Obedience drips from that love. Faithfulness oozes. Joy jumps out of it. Peace permeates it. How can we be so dumb as to believe that money will make us happy!

With the President's big bailout will come a new taxation of the money you so enjoy. You may as well get used to giving it up! That isn't a fear tactic, it is simply the truth. Dollars and cents, pesos and Euros are temporal. Ceasar will come and take them. But your heart...well now, that's another thing all together. Store up your hearts desire in the person of the true King of Kings. He will never let you down. In fact, he will take your loving deposits and store them up where interest and inflation cannot devalue. There is no treasure rot in the Kingdom. Hallelujah.

So, to keep from paying Ceasar now, give more to the work of the ministry. May as well let the church spend it rather than the government. We'll do some real bailing.
We bail some people out of hell.
Pastor Jim