One simple way to determine the location of your treasure is to look at your calendar and your credit card statement. Your calendar reflects how you spend your time and your credit card statement reveals how you spend your money. The way you spend your time and your money is a reflection of what is important to you. Jesus teaches us the importance of having the right priorities,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; (Matthew 6:19–20)

Jesus tells us not to place our treasure on that which is temporal and can be taken away. If your happiness and security is dependent upon that which can be taken away, then your happiness and security may be lost as well. If you build your life upon that which cannot be taken away, then you can withstand the uncertainties of life. Jim Elliot recorded in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

It is not wrong to possess things, but it is wrong for our things to possess us. Jesus is not banning possessions or saving for an emergency. He is speaking against the accumulation of possessions for our selfish purposes. The one who is rich is not the one who has much, but the one who gives much. When your treasure is in the right place, then you can demonstrate generosity. Jesus reveals the importance of having your treasure in the right place,

 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21)

What does it mean to lay up your treasure in heaven? This involves measuring your life by the true riches of God’s kingdom and not by the false riches of the world. Jesus warned against the dangers of greed and a desire to have more,

Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)

Likewise, the Apostle Paul warns against our reliance upon riches and temporal pursuits,

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17)

May your treasure be upon that which will last through eternity.

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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