Saturday, January 21, 2017

January 21, 2017

“Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

There are moments that mark our lives and become forged in our mind as memories. 

For instance, I'm sure you remember the day you put your child on the school bus for the very first time. You choked back a big gulp and watched the bus until it disappeared over the horizon. Your whole world was on that bus! You prayed for you child and you also offered one up for the bus driver!

And then as your child reaches those mid-teen years and obtains a driver's license your anxiety level reaches never before imagined levels. You never forget the day when you hand the keys to your kid and he backs the car down the driveway, onto the street and off your radar. A huge check of your world has just headed into a world of potential disaster.

While you pray and fight back your fears and tear, you just hope that you have prepared his heart and mind to handle this responsibility. You hope your long discussions about the potential dangers and risks of driving have lodged somewhere in his thought process. You pray that his driver's education experience has trained him adequately.

Then, there's the time you drop him off at college and you unload his things, get him settled in his dorm room, resist the urge for one final lecture, hug him tight and head the car toward home feeling like you've been clubbed with a ball bat.

All the way home you review all the discussions you and your spouse had with him trying to prepare him for the potential pitfalls of college campus life. You pray that you have successfully shaped his heart and mind to make responsible decisions and avoid devastating ones.

Parenting is all about preparing your child(ren) for those moments when they step into new freedoms and responsibilities. You hope you have put their heart and mind in a good place. You pray they have learned to make decisions based on long-term success not short-term temptations.

This is what is going on in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is beginning to prepare His disciples for the day when He will hand over to them the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is where Heaven touches earth and the temporary connects to the eternal. The Kingdom of God is living on earth with heavenly values. The Kingdom of God is about using the temporary things of earth into eternal treasures! It is what Jesus came to bring us and succeeded in doing! And it is what he came to call and prepare His disciples to do. He knew He had three years to shape their hearts and mold their minds before He handed off the keys to God's Kingdom.

The verses above are taken from the middle of this message. Jesus is instructing His disciples to keep their focus fixed on eternity and eternal values. Money and material possession will tug their hearts toward selfishness and greed so they must consciously and intentionally have eternity in their hearts.

Jesus knew the powerful pull of materialism. He needed to impress that on His disciples, warn them of it's dangers and try to turn their hearts toward eternity.

If you are a follower of Christ this morning, you have been given the keys to the Kingdom of God. Your assignment today is to "lay up treasures in heaven" by how you handle the material things and relationships with people you interact with today. "Treasures in heaven" refers not just to stuff it refers to souls as well!

So, how do you want God to feel today as you take the keys to His Kingdom and head off to live life on planet earth today? Will you make choices that will help His Kingdom to come and His will to be done?

Will you lay up treasures in eternity or gather up things than bind you to this world?











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