Where Your Treasure Is

Jesus told us something that no one can really dispute. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6:21). In other words, your passions and intentions will be aimed in the direction of those things you value most. Not a difficult or even particularly Christian concept. It's simply a truism.

It is a useful truism, however. We are not always clear on what we value most, but we can use this little truth to give us clues. Do you pursue those things that are best for people around you or for yourself? That should tell you about what you value more. Do you work hard at getting more stuff or do you work hard at giving more? That's a clue to what you value more. Are you primarily concerned about health and comfort or about doing what God wants of you regardless of your feelings about it? That's a giveaway as well. Look what Paul said:

⁷ Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith -- ¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, ¹¹ that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹² Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. ¹⁶ Only let us hold true to what we have attained (Phil. 3:7-16) (ESV).

(I told you we'd come back to this.)

The question I started with was "Where is your treasure? What do you value most?" Paul's answer is simple, yet stunning. The only thing that he counted as valuable was "knowing Christ Jesus" (3:8) All the things that Paul had -- breeding, education, connections, power, zeal -- he placed in the "liability" column of his life. The only thing in the "asset" column was "knowing Christ Jesus." The only thing that he could add to the "asset" column was knowing Him better. And it wasn't the joy or comfort of Christ that Paul sought to know better. He wanted to know the power of His resurrection (3:10), but for what end? Well, Paul really wanted to know Christ in His suffering (3:10). He wanted to "share His sufferings" and become "like Him in His death" (3:10). The reason Paul wanted to know the power of His resurrection was so that he could become perfect by dying to self and rising to Christ (3:10-12). Paul's ultimate value, his real treasure, was knowing the suffering of Christ and the power that would follow to make Paul not only righteous through faith (3:9), but righteous in action (3:16).

So we ask ourselves, "What do I treasure?" Paul treasured knowing Christ and His suffering. He lived it ... dying for it. He clearly demonstrated where his heart was. I suspect that our treasures aren't nearly as noble. I suspect that we suffer from selfish treasures. We want to be comfortable knowing that this life is "but a vapor" (James 4:14). Foolishness. We want to be healthy and wealthy, knowing that these things are temporal. Nonsense. We do not want to suffer at any cost, although we know that trials produce in us perfection (James 1:2-4). I suspect that Paul was speaking to too many of us when he wrote, "If in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you" (3:15). Perhaps we need to realign the things we treasure the most. Maybe then we'll see the realignment of the heart that we know we need.