Wednesday March 19th Chuck’s Daily Devo Matthew

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

This excerpt is from Jesus’ most famous sermon," the Sermon on the Mount". It’s interesting to note that historically, people traveled as far as a one hundred miles to see and hear Jesus of Nazareth. That’s committment. It reminds me of that old 70’s/early 80’s commercial for the Brokerage Firm called E.F. Hutton. In the commercial, a man typically says," My broker is E.F. Hutton", and after he says that, no matter where they are, people stop everything they do to a moment of stunned silence, and then the commercial ends shortly after this moment. I like to think that the same is true for me when God wants to communicate a message to me. As I said, I would like to think so, but I know me, all too well.

If the truth be told, I need a reminder to be listening for what God is trying to say to me. Sometimes daily, hourly, and minute-by-minute. We were saying in class on Sunday night that we’re so busy/so technologically modern, that we have to have everybody turn off their electronic devices in order to possibly have a one and a half hour class w/ minimal interuptions. That in mind, in our text, Jesus uses a word that is so perfectly generic, it’s application reaches far into our lives and makes for wonderfully large applications to us. Simply put, we treasure things! We do! You do, I do, your cousin Beatrice from Albequerque does, we’re all busted.

To prove my point, I’ve got two words and a hyphen for you, fifty-five!!! Sammy Hagar sang it in the 80’s and it still rings true today. We can’t drive fifty-five, we treasure speed. We treasure whatever we can get quickly. And it’s no surprise at all that Jesus put’s it in the perspective of the eye gate for us because that’s the entry point for our treasures. We see things and we say," hot-dog", I want that. I do that w/ bibles, food, clothes, the list goes on, ad infinitum...

So, what to do? The first thing that occurs to me is God’s anticipation of our human excuse realm. He says, very perceptively," where your treasure is", present tense. He knows our excuse maker will say things along these lines," Well Lord, I’ve looked at_______________ for so many years, what’s the use in stopping now?" And God says to us,"where your treasure is" right now/where is your eye gate focusing on right now?" You see as our Creator, He’s at a certain vantage point. He knows us, knows what we did, what we’re doing, what we will do, and how we’re created to do what those things entail.

So, just for today, what do I treasure? What do I allow my eyes to see, reflect on, anticipate, or even worse, when I’m most vulnerable/susceptible to temptation, i.e.=tired, stressed, hungry, lonely,bored, the beat goes on. Not only that, but am I considering what is really treasure compared w/ what is invariably fool’s gold? Personally speaking, treasure equates to people, people are treasure in God’s estimation. He makes that clear in parables like the one where the man sells all they he has for the pearl, that’s Jesus. He gave everything up to become a man so He would draw pearls of human hearts to Himself, and I trust that He’s continually doing that in your life as well as mine. Where’s your heart my friends? Where do you allow your eyes to travel? Where’s your heart on this fine spring day, and when God speaks, are we becoming E.F. Hutton clients for the kingdom of heaven?