Matthew
6:19-24 is about the Treasure in heaven where Jesus suggests that our priority
must be God and not earthly wealth in our life. He doesn’t discourage having
the wealth here on the earth but he focuses that the materialistic wealth fades
away but the treasure in heaven never fades. It is his suggestion not to rely
our life on temporary possessions of this world but to appreciate heavenly
treasure. Our attitude towards the wealth matters since most of our time, we
make money our master rather than slave. We work for it but we long for it. We
submit our life to its rule and our heart is always projected towards it.
Anything that rules our life besides God is idolatry. It rules our mind,
thoughts, psychology, societies, relationships and other vital aspects of our
life.
While
focusing and dedicating our whole life on earning materialistic luxury, we
spend all our efforts on it. Ultimately there is no gain at all (Matthew
16:26). However, our focus is to be rewards from God in heaven. He promises of
glorious future and rewards to us. If we focus at God’s possessions, we
ultimately understand he is the ultimate treasure we indeed need (Matthew
6:33). The possessions, powers, wealth, status and authorities we gain in this
world are all temporary pleasure. We need to seek true pleasure and delight in
God, his presence, his relationship, his will, his plans, his reward, his dream
and his motivation in our life. Jesus is our ultimate treasure who gave us the
most important wealth which is none other than God himself. That’s the sweetest
nectar in our life which shall never fade and never waste away. When our focus
deviates from world towards God, then our heart seeks him.
Regarding
our personal life, we are surrounded by materialistic applications and we use
them daily. The modern world has made us total indebted and dependence towards
modern applications. They have become trap for us, opium for us and they are
ruling us. We are regarding them as valuable treasure in our life. They are
probably idolatry because of our priority on daily basis. We use them for our
every works in daily life. The only way we can escape from making them as our
idols is that we must learn to use them for God’s glory with regular prayer and
spiritual discipline. We must learn to deny our free will and accept the rule
of God so that he may guide us and fill us with his divine wisdom to use those
things for his own purpose. This way we can set our priority towards treating
our Lord as true treasure.
To
avoid our obsession towards the things of this world, we must have proper
spiritual exercise of keeping oneself disciplined and submitting to God’s
sovereign will and intervention. Everything in this world are his provision for
us (Matthew 6:25-34) but it depends on us how we use them in our life.
Therefore, we must be careful not to give anything of this world the place more
than they deserve i.e. they are nothing but God’s provision and used by God for
his own glory.
Jesus
is our treasure. We must seek His will, his kingdom and his relationship. They
remain delightful for us eternally but the treasures of this world don’t work
for longevity and gets spoiled. They don’t give us true happiness, satisfaction
and joy except the fellowship with God. Our mind must be focused on God and he
must be our priority at the first layer and we must learn to set secondary
layer priorities of this world in his hand so that he can manage them in our
life (1 Peter 5:7). We must learn to be in safe hand of God, our true joy and
treasure (Phil. 4:4).