Entrusted: Where Your Heart Is
Where Your Treasure Is: A Journey to the Heart of Stewardship
There's a profound truth that runs through the fabric of our faith journey, one that challenges us to look beyond the surface of our daily routines and examine what truly drives us. It's a truth about treasure, about hearts, and about the invisible forces that shape our lives in ways we might not even recognize.
The Blessing Inventory
Take a moment right now and consider this question: What are you blessed with?
Before you answer "not much" or begin to compare your life to others, let's be specific. You're blessed with family and friends. You're blessed with a physical body, a soul, and relationships that matter. You have talents uniquely yours, opportunities both present and future, a community, a home, and countless other gifts that fill your days. The list goes on—your work, your church, your worship, the very grace and mercy of God Himself.
When we truly inventory our lives, we discover we're blessed beyond measure. But here's where it gets interesting: we've been placed as managers of these blessings, not owners. Everything we have comes from God and belongs to God. We're simply the stewards, entrusted with managing these gifts for His glory and purpose.
The Starting Point: First Fruits
The biblical concept of the tithe—giving God the first ten percent—isn't about mathematical obligation. It's about starting with our first and our best. After all, if we cannot start with the first, how will we ever get there with the rest?
But there's more to the story. Beyond the tithe, there's the offering. The tithe demonstrates our obedience to God, while the offering reveals our gratitude. The tithe is the baseline, the starting place. The offering is where generosity comes alive, where our thankfulness overflows into action.
This applies to more than just money. It encompasses our time, our talents, our energy, and our attention. Are you giving at least ten percent of your time to serve others and advance God's kingdom? What are you offering above and beyond in ministry to those around you?
The Heart of the Matter
Here's the central truth that everything hinges on: it all comes down to your heart.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians with crystal clarity: "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Notice where the decision is made—in the heart, not in circumstances of scarcity or abundance.
Jesus took this even further in the Sermon on the Mount with words that cut straight to the core: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
That last sentence deserves to be underlined, highlighted, and memorized. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What you value most is truly where your heart is, and what has captured your heart will direct your life.
The Security Question
Consider the treasures of this world. In recent years, thieves broke into one of the most secure museums in the world and stole crown jewels worth over one hundred million dollars. In another bizarre heist, someone actually stole an eighteen-karat gold toilet valued at nearly six million dollars from a historic palace—using sledgehammers and crowbars, they made off with it in under five minutes.
If crown jewels aren't safe, if even a golden toilet in a secure location can be stolen, how safe are your treasures?
But Jesus isn't teaching us to build bigger vaults or install better security systems. He's challenging us to change what we treasure entirely. He's calling us to shift our mindset from the temporal to the eternal, from valuing the fleeting to valuing the forever.
The Real Treasure
So what are these treasures in heaven Jesus speaks of? Some might think of crowns or mansions. But consider this perspective: the real treasure is people. The treasure is relationships that last into eternity. The treasure is being part of God's kingdom work that transforms lives and draws people into His family.
When we adopt a kingdom mindset, when we maintain a heavenly and eternal focus, everything changes. Our stewardship of all our blessings—yes, including our money—takes on new meaning and purpose.
Jesus was direct about this: "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
This isn't saying money is sinful. Money is simply a tool, neither good nor bad in itself. But money can lead us to sin if it becomes the treasure of our hearts, if it becomes the driving force of our lives. Like all our other blessings, money is something we've been charged to manage in a way that honors God and accomplishes His will.
The Split Focus Problem
Jesus said no one can serve two masters. You cannot walk around with a split focus and expect to live into the full blessings God has for you. When our hearts are divided, when we're trying to serve both God and something else, we'll never experience the abundant life He offers.
But when we search our hearts and focus them on God, when we seek His will in all things—including the stewardship of every blessing entrusted to us—life changes. Our blessings become blessings to others, which is exactly what they were meant for all along.
The Invitation
So here's the question that matters most: What's in your heart?
What are your treasures? Not what you say they are, but what they actually are. What are those things or that thing that directs your life? What fills your heart and spills out into your words and actions?
This requires honest self-examination. It means looking beyond good intentions to actual priorities demonstrated by how you spend your time, energy, attention, and resources.
The good news is that hearts can change. Priorities can be realigned. Treasures can be reevaluated and replaced. When we allow God to search our hearts and show us what's really there, He can begin the transformative work of reordering our lives around what truly matters—Him and His kingdom purposes.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So choose your treasure wisely, and watch how it changes everything.
There's a profound truth that runs through the fabric of our faith journey, one that challenges us to look beyond the surface of our daily routines and examine what truly drives us. It's a truth about treasure, about hearts, and about the invisible forces that shape our lives in ways we might not even recognize.
The Blessing Inventory
Take a moment right now and consider this question: What are you blessed with?
Before you answer "not much" or begin to compare your life to others, let's be specific. You're blessed with family and friends. You're blessed with a physical body, a soul, and relationships that matter. You have talents uniquely yours, opportunities both present and future, a community, a home, and countless other gifts that fill your days. The list goes on—your work, your church, your worship, the very grace and mercy of God Himself.
When we truly inventory our lives, we discover we're blessed beyond measure. But here's where it gets interesting: we've been placed as managers of these blessings, not owners. Everything we have comes from God and belongs to God. We're simply the stewards, entrusted with managing these gifts for His glory and purpose.
The Starting Point: First Fruits
The biblical concept of the tithe—giving God the first ten percent—isn't about mathematical obligation. It's about starting with our first and our best. After all, if we cannot start with the first, how will we ever get there with the rest?
But there's more to the story. Beyond the tithe, there's the offering. The tithe demonstrates our obedience to God, while the offering reveals our gratitude. The tithe is the baseline, the starting place. The offering is where generosity comes alive, where our thankfulness overflows into action.
This applies to more than just money. It encompasses our time, our talents, our energy, and our attention. Are you giving at least ten percent of your time to serve others and advance God's kingdom? What are you offering above and beyond in ministry to those around you?
The Heart of the Matter
Here's the central truth that everything hinges on: it all comes down to your heart.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians with crystal clarity: "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Notice where the decision is made—in the heart, not in circumstances of scarcity or abundance.
Jesus took this even further in the Sermon on the Mount with words that cut straight to the core: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
That last sentence deserves to be underlined, highlighted, and memorized. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What you value most is truly where your heart is, and what has captured your heart will direct your life.
The Security Question
Consider the treasures of this world. In recent years, thieves broke into one of the most secure museums in the world and stole crown jewels worth over one hundred million dollars. In another bizarre heist, someone actually stole an eighteen-karat gold toilet valued at nearly six million dollars from a historic palace—using sledgehammers and crowbars, they made off with it in under five minutes.
If crown jewels aren't safe, if even a golden toilet in a secure location can be stolen, how safe are your treasures?
But Jesus isn't teaching us to build bigger vaults or install better security systems. He's challenging us to change what we treasure entirely. He's calling us to shift our mindset from the temporal to the eternal, from valuing the fleeting to valuing the forever.
The Real Treasure
So what are these treasures in heaven Jesus speaks of? Some might think of crowns or mansions. But consider this perspective: the real treasure is people. The treasure is relationships that last into eternity. The treasure is being part of God's kingdom work that transforms lives and draws people into His family.
When we adopt a kingdom mindset, when we maintain a heavenly and eternal focus, everything changes. Our stewardship of all our blessings—yes, including our money—takes on new meaning and purpose.
Jesus was direct about this: "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."
This isn't saying money is sinful. Money is simply a tool, neither good nor bad in itself. But money can lead us to sin if it becomes the treasure of our hearts, if it becomes the driving force of our lives. Like all our other blessings, money is something we've been charged to manage in a way that honors God and accomplishes His will.
The Split Focus Problem
Jesus said no one can serve two masters. You cannot walk around with a split focus and expect to live into the full blessings God has for you. When our hearts are divided, when we're trying to serve both God and something else, we'll never experience the abundant life He offers.
But when we search our hearts and focus them on God, when we seek His will in all things—including the stewardship of every blessing entrusted to us—life changes. Our blessings become blessings to others, which is exactly what they were meant for all along.
The Invitation
So here's the question that matters most: What's in your heart?
What are your treasures? Not what you say they are, but what they actually are. What are those things or that thing that directs your life? What fills your heart and spills out into your words and actions?
This requires honest self-examination. It means looking beyond good intentions to actual priorities demonstrated by how you spend your time, energy, attention, and resources.
The good news is that hearts can change. Priorities can be realigned. Treasures can be reevaluated and replaced. When we allow God to search our hearts and show us what's really there, He can begin the transformative work of reordering our lives around what truly matters—Him and His kingdom purposes.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So choose your treasure wisely, and watch how it changes everything.
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