Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
We tend to want happiness on terms that seem to be under our control. We begin with the experience of pleasure that we have when we acquire something particularly good. From that experience we generalize, deciding if some is good, more must be better. Treasure is deceptive because acquiring it makes us feel as though a gap is being filled, and that if we could just get a little more we would have enough. Even while it is making our desire more and more insatiable it claims to be delivering on the promise of final fulfillment.
But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
It is not the case that buying just one more thing will make us happy, no matter whether that thing is home repairs, a pair of shoes, a new movie, a yacht, or whatever else might seem like the last missing piece. Indeed it is often the case that those things we do have begin to demand more of us than they give. When this happens our possessions begin to possess us rather than the other way around. We do have temporary need of various material goods, but we must use them recognizing that they are subject to moth, decay, and thieves. They are degenerating, and from an eternal perspective they are on the verge of disappearing. We should approach possessions with simplicity, looking more to God than to things for the source of our joy. If we seek our happiness in creation our own hearts will be on the same path to breaking down as the things which hold them captive. If we seek our happiness in God we will be secure in good times and in bad as our hearts become more full of the peace that the world cannot give, and the joy that only Jesus himself can offer.
“The lamp of the body is the eye.
If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.
And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.”
In order to follow in the way Jesus teaches we must cooperate with his grace at work in us. If we want to care about God more than riches then we can't spend our time gazing on the riches about which we ostensibly don't care. If we want to keep our hearts pure so that we can see God we can't let our gaze linger on beautiful people. We need what saints called 'custody of the eyes' so that we can ensure that the things we see edify us rather than ensnare us. It is a point that is simple, but profound. It is a rather easy move to make, that of simply looking away, when we remember that we are free by grace to make it.
Apart from these words of Jesus upon what might we have fixed our gaze today? What things of this earth have us enchanted over and above what they can actually deliver for us? This might mean not spending time looking at the situations of people we envy, even those who seem to be doing a better job walking the Christian walk, because their circumstance is one thing and ours is another. God wants to work with us where we are, which is made difficult if we're too focused on somewhere else.
The fact of the matter of that our eye is often unsound to the degree that it often brings us unhappiness. We have a sort of half awareness that this is the case, yet we keep looking, staring longingly at things which can never satisfy us. We simply need to realize fully what is happening and use the freedom we have been given to look away from harmful things and instead unto God.
Again today, Paul is the perfect example of the principle of looking to that which satisfies. If he fixed his gaze on the idea of a comfortable life he would not have been able to be faithful to his mission in the way that he was. He was able to deal with "dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure" because he didn't spend his awareness meditating on the pleasant life he might otherwise have had. Instead, because he kept the prize of the upward call of Jesus (see Philippians 3:14) before his eyes he was able to say:
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
Let's start directing our gaze intentionally, rather than letting it lead us. Let us learn to find our treasure in heaven.
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