“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
In Greek, the words translated as “lay up/store” and “treasure” come from the same root, thesauros. You might recognize this as the Greek word that gives us “thesaurus.” Lay up/store conveys a sense of accumulating, amassing and keeping in reserve. Treasure carries the sense of making a deposit. In effect, Jesus is telling us not to keep in reserve deposits that can be ruined in some manner. Instead, He encourages us to amass only those deposits that will have lasting value.
During the Civil War, the Confederacy issued its own currency. In the southern states, all trade occurred using that currency, but the currency had value only for as long as the Confederacy was in existence. Once the Union won the Civil War and the Confederacy ceased to exist, the confederate currency ceased to have value. Likewise today, we can choose to trade in the world’s currency or in God’s currency. The important question, however, is which currency has the most lasting value? Since Jesus’ death and resurrection overcame sin and evil, the world’s currency will one day cease to have value, while God’s currency will have everlasting value.
What does God value?
Very high on God list of values is relationships. His relationship within the Trinity motivated Him to create humanity. He desired to be in perfect relationship with the first man and woman in the Garden. When sin entered the world and broke that relationship, God set in motion His plan to restore the relationships between Himself and humanity. The Old Testament is full of stories of God pursuing relationship with His people despite their repeated decisions to turn their backs on Him. In the New Testament, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection did what the sacrificial system of the Old Testament could not. Faith in Jesus permanently restores our relationship with God.
Today we are called to live out that relationship with God by being in relationship with others. Those relationships testify to God and His grace and mercy. We can draw people to faith in Christ. Our relationships can encourage others as they grow in relationship with God. We can also support those who take the testimony of God’s love to faraway places. God can use our relationships with others in ways we perhaps cannot begin to imagine at the time the connection is first made.
The Value of Relationships
God’s currency uses things to foster relationships with people. The world’s currency most often uses people to accumulate and hoard things. At the end of time, what will survive? Not the things of this world, but the people.
We will embrace either the world or God. One or other will serve as the focal point of our lives. To use Jesus’ terminology, one or other will be the master of our lives. We cannot focus on or serve both. We may straddle the fence and successfully negotiate both, but it will only be for a short time. Ultimately we will have to make a decision. What is your decision? Will you have a treasure trove filled with the encouragement, service, and sacrifice that comes from dealing in God’s currency? Or will your treasure trove, which appeared full in this lifetime, be empty because the things of this world have no value in the next? It is not too late to begin dealing in God’s currency.
This post originally appeared on AskGodToday.com