My younger sister recently died. She had a number of serious health issues. I always assumed my sister’s health issues would eventually catch up with her, but her passing still came as a shock. I thought she probably had a few more years. It led me to contemplate the idea of heavenly treasures over earthly wealth.
The finality of death has a way of clarifying ideas that you’ve only thought through in a general sense. Her passing made me reflect deeply on life’s priorities—something we often overlook until faced with such a reality.
The world has a lot of ideas about what’s important. I suppose confusion about priorities is logical when you don’t know God. After all, if you believe that life ends when the body dies, then your understanding of life and death will be shaped by whatever your environment or experiences have taught you.
As I thought through my sisters death, I thought through the years – decades really – she’d planned for retirement. She studied hard to earn a university degree and worked long hours and weekends to advance in her career. Moreover, she paid off her house, and diligently saved for retirement. And she even bought a home in Florida—planning for the comfortable life she dreamed of. Indeed, it’s a lengthy list of activities that required 10s of thousands of hours throughout her adult life. All so that she would have the “fuel” to fund a comfortable life in retirement . It’s was a dream of hers and most of us.
Sadly, the dreams driving all of that effort were never realized. All the countless hours she spent accumulating those dollars only to have them passed on to people that only have a general idea of the effort it required. And all the hours spent organizing and planning were all for naught. It never brought her the security or peace she had hoped for.
My thoughts of my sisters priorities led me to God in prayer. “What are a person’s priorities?” I asked God. I initially thought that it was going to be a complicated answer. I thought there would be many facets and that God might answer over the coming weeks. But it wasn’t. God immediately put Matthew 6:19-21 in my thoughts. In that moment, I realized that true priorities are about what we invest in for eternity. It’s not about what we accumulate in this fleeting life.
19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Matthew 6:19-21
“Don’t store up treasures here on earth…” Jesus is warning us against the single-minded pursuit of wealth accumulation for the future. Furthermore, He highlights the temporary nature of such treasures and the difficulty of keeping them safe. He reminds us that they are vulnerable to loss, and that they will eventually become corrupted.
After this answer from God I began to reflect on my own life. Have I had a drive similar to my sister to accumulate wealth? I would like to be able to answer “no”, but I have. It hasn’t been an all consuming goal but it’s always a serious consideration. Too much of a consideration in hindsight. I should have recognized earlier the blessings that God has poured out on me and I should have adjusted accordingly.
That is really the purpose of this article. Are you overly focused on storing up treasure for yourself? I encourage you to meditate on the idea of heavenly treasures over earthly wealth. Let’s all pray that God would change our hearts to shift our focus to storing up heavenly treasures.
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