For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21, NIV)
Every golfer must decide what part of their game needs the most attention. What will we practice today? That question must be answered before we pull a club from our bag. What skill needs to improve to lower our score? Where should we expend our energy and focus? It would be the most fun to practice smashing our driver, but will that result in our overall goal of improving our score?
It seems so easy to get caught up in trivial things. How can we decide what actions should be the most important? How do we, as believers, decide what the real treasure is in our life?
Our verse for today is often referenced when speaking about our money and what we do with it, but it also speaks to a much bigger issue. Our time is one of our greatest treasures. It is in limited supply for all of us. We are all busy, and there are no do-overs if we waste this most valuable commodity. Is what we are doing in line with what God wants us to spend our time on?
The people in our life should be the most frequent recipients of our time. For me, when I am the very busiest, trying to finish my to-do list, a human crosses my path and allows me to accomplish something eternal.
If my perspective is focused on pleasing God, I will stop what I am doing and take the time to be the person the other person needs. Jesus lived His whole life like that. No human that ever crossed His path with a need was put off to a more convenient time. Since we are called to follow Him, this is a good thought about prioritizing our time.
We all wonder how we are going to get everything done. We need to remember that our joy and peace don’t ultimately rest in what we accomplish. They rest in our obedience to the call of God on our life. We should not neglect our greatest relationship—the one we have with Him.
If our eyes are fixed on Him, we will find the time to listen to His voice as He navigates us through the chaos of our life. In this process of seeking Him first, all the other things we want and need come to pass. In God’s economy, our two greatest tasks are to love Him and our neighbor as ourselves.
If our heart belongs to Him, and we listen for His direction, everything we do is counted for us as treasure in heaven.
Prayer—Father! Please help us to redeem the time you have given us. Let us use it to send true treasure ahead of us to heaven. Amen