Where is your heart?

 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21 ESV

This morning we did not have corporate worship at Connect Church, so I sat at my kitchen table and read my Bible.  My reading today took me to the greatest sermon ever preached by anyone.  It is found in Matthew 5 and it goes through Matthew 7.  The verse that stood out to me today and I believe for a very good reason is verse 6:21.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  God has been greatly convicting me on how I manage His money.  Over the years I have not been a very good steward of the money God has entrusted me with.  I am very impulsive when it comes to purchasing anything.  This is the area of the flesh that I struggle with and in November of 2013 I repented of this sin and have been striving diligently to create good habits when in comes to money.

When I read verse 6:21 it hit me like a ton of bricks.  My misuse of money was because of Idolatry.  My heart belonged to earthly things and not God himself.  We are to love God with all our minds, strength and hearts.  I know that there has never been a moment that anyone has ever done this except for Jesus, but we are to be diligently striving toward the goal which is heavenward.

God is not opposed to giving us money.  He is not opposed to us spending money.  What He is greatly opposed to is His people giving there hearts to other Gods.  We read about how Israel would fall into Idolatry constantly and how God loathed it.  The same thing happens to those in the church.  Where's your heart? or Who owns your heart?  Well, the best way to find this out is by figuring out where you are investing your treasure.  Are you investing your treasure in earthly things or in heavenly things.

Have you ever said that you wished you had a heart for prayer, missions, or a heart for the poor, or a heart for your local church?  The best way to get a heart for anything is to start giving sacrificially to it.  So, if you are giving to a missionary in the Philippines and you read in the paper that a typhoon has hit there, you are greatly concerned and you begin to pray.  Why?  Because you have been storing your treasure in heaven on behalf of the people of the Philippines.  The same goes for our interest in the local church.  When you give to your local church, your interests in the things of the church begin to rise, prayer for the people who attend there and those who are leading  Your attendance to worship becomes an important and necessary part of your week, you want to be part of its life no matter what is going on.  This happens because your heart is there now because your treasure is there.  This also goes to the negative.  If you are investing in T.V.'s, you will want to watch more of it, if you are investing in your children's activities then they will run your lives, if you are investing in cars, cabins, houses, etc. your hearts will be there and not on the things of heaven.

Randy Alcorn in his book Money, Possessions and Eternity says,"If you say,'My heart isn't in all the things of God.' Is it because your treasure isn't in the things of God? Put your resources, your assets, your money and possessions, your time and talents and energies into the things of God. As surely as the compass needle follows north, your heart will follow your treasure.  Money leads; hearts follow."

I am going to embrace Kingdom principles in my approach to money and allow God to revolutionize my life and my family's.

Where is your heart?