Treasure

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I treasure lately and how my life reflects that — or doesn’t. Having a new baby while my oldest is not yet three and my second isn’t even a year and a half yet has been such a reminder of how quickly time goes. They grow and change so quickly and I want to make sure that I’m doing my best to live my life in a way that honors God. I want Psalm 19:14, which says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” to be true about myself. As I continued to reflect on this topic of treasure, I thought of two verses that I felt went hand in hand and really made me aware of something.

Luke 12:34 says, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Now, I’ve heard this verse many times throughout my life, but I don’t think about how it applies to my life as often until recently. It’s so easy for me to get caught up in things here on earth because I can see them now. The idea that we are to be storing up treasures in heaven like Luke 12:33 says as oppose to treasures on earth can be a hard concept to grasp and remember because we don’t get to see our heavenly treasures — until we’re in heaven. Losing my dad reminded me of how unimportant earthly treasures really are. It didn’t matter what he had here on earth, when he passed away none of it was important to him anymore. This has made me look at what is truly important and try to remember that the earthly things aren’t truly important in the grand scheme of life. I absolutely think that it is important to be a good steward of the things we have been blessed with here on earth and I don’t think that there is anything wrong with enjoying things on earth — as long as they don’t become more important than God and what He teaches us to treasure.

As I thought about our treasure being where our heart is, I remembered another verse that I’ve heard many times. Luke 6:45 says, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” If our mouths speak about what we treasure, than that means whatever our heart is treasuring is what we’ll speak about. I view this verse as a sort of test as to what our hearts are treasuring. If I spend most of my time talking about things of this world, then I’m most likely treasuring the things of this world. Likewise, if I spend most of my time talking about God and spiritual things, than I’m treasuring Him. I think that if I treasure the things that God treasures — the hearts of people — then my speech will reflect that. I will speak truth and life into people. I will do as Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” When our hearts are treasuring the things that God treasures, then our speech will reflect that.

Now, our speech isn’t the only reflection of what we treasure. When we treasure God and His Word, than we will live differently too. James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Our lives will reflect what we believe in our hearts. What we treasure will be evident through our words and our actions. When we grow our relationship with Jesus and allow Him to transform us, our lives will reflect that. The transformation will continue throughout our entire lives — the more we grow our relationship with Jesus, the more transformation there will be. That is why following Jesus and being in a relationship with Him isn’t a one time deal. We must continue to follow Him and grow in Him all the days of our lives.

There is a lot more I could go into regarding this topic and I could certainly go on about the topic of our hearts — the word “heart” appears 763 times in my Bible (ESV). The point of this post is simply to ponder the idea that what we spend our time talking about is a good indication of what our heart is treasuring. I want my heart to treasure the things of God, not the things of this world. I want my speech and my life to be honoring to God. I want my husband and children to know what I treasure and I want to help my children learn to treasure what God treasures as oppose to what the world treasures. Our tongues are powerful and what we speak reflects what we treasure. May we be people who treasure what God calls us to treasure as opposed to what the world treasures.

Questions to consider: What do you treasure? How does your speech and life reflect that? Are you using your words to speak life or death into people?

Song(s) of the Week: This week I chose “Speak Life” by TobyMac. Enjoy!