In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Matthew 6:19-21) Jesus also tells a story of a rich man whose farms produced a bumper crop, so he decided to build bigger barns to store his wealth and then sit back and take it easy. He died that very night and his wealth was left behind for others. (Luke 12:16-21) The moral of that story, “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”
My eyes have finally been opened to the fact that Jesus isn’t really talking about where our treasures are stored at all, but what it is that we treasure. You can’t store earthly wealth in heaven. Ancient pharaohs had their treasures, food and even their wives and servants buried with them but you can’t take it with you, so it was all left behind for grave robbers. When we die, we will travel very light; leaving behind our possessions and even our physical bodies.
Please don’t misunderstand; it is prudent to set aside some resources for a “rainy day”. Christian financial councilors tell us to give God a tenth of our income and save a tenth; living on the remaining 80%. There is a big difference between saving something for future needs and hoarding and treasuring wealth. Everything I own belongs to God and is simply on loan to me while I’m alive; to share with others and use as His Holy Spirit dictates. It is only when I begin to treasure my blessings above the Giver that I get into trouble.
I have written before about a flooded basement I had several years ago. Many valuable items had to be discarded including over 100 color slides of my Holy Land trip in 1964 and other irreplaceable books and documents. That painful experience taught me that it isn’t those physical treasures that are important, but the precious memories and lessons I have learned along the way that I still treasure in my heart and mind. Since we had no children, my wife and I decided to be cremated. Her ashes are on my living room mantle. They aren’t valuable, but they are a reminder of the precious memories and the love for her that is still stored in my heart and mind. She is a treasure I have waiting for me in heaven.
Every precious relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ is a treasure being stored in heaven. The greatest treasure of all, as Jesus points out, is “a rich relationship with God”. What treasure could possibly be more valuable than that?