“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” Mat 6:21 NKJV.
This scripture is sometimes used when the offering at Church is being taken. I've always taken this scripture as an admonition to check my heart and I do. I have lived a good life. Every good thing I have is a benefit of living for God, in Christ. I really enjoy the comforts God has provided. I’m not rich by any means, but I am blessed. Do I love my money more than Jesus? Are my possessions truly my treasure? Up until the end of last year, I looked at that scripture as if it pointed to my possessions. Then one night my son took the offering and used this very scripture and my real treasures came forward.
As he spoke that night and challenged the congregation to check and see just how very tight we clung to our treasure, I realized that he, my first born child, and my other three are my treasure. my heart IS where my treasure is and I have tended to cling too tight sometimes. I’m sitting here hovering over my keyboard, trying to express this correctly, because as a born again, bible believing Christian, where my treasure is, there my heart is also. Christ is my treasure, my all in all, and in him I’ve lived a blessed, treasure full life. My children are my greatest earthly treasure, valuable!
Even though they are a gift from God, and even though he has the best plan for them, it has not been easy to offer them up to God. Somewhere along the path of raising them, loving them, teaching them and preparing them, some moms (me) appropriate their kids, forgetting that they are God's children first. I’m one of those “momma bears” releasing them is usually an act of God.
I listened to my son that night and cried because very soon I’ll be releasing him and his family, my beautiful daughter inlaw and my five grandchildren to God again, It’s obviously not the first releasing experience, but it seems that each time it gets harder. this time they’re leaving for the mission field. Oh goodness! South America isn't South Bay San Diego, which is just 20 minutes away from us.
That night I walked back to those memories when he was a backslidden church kid, angry and discontent. I would pray, asking God to save him, I offered my unrefined treasure to God then, knowing he was playing “religion,” talking “Christianese” but not walking like a true believer. He was lost in his sin right there in the assembly, then one weekend, God accepted my offering, it seemed like “all of a sudden” he was knocked off his high horse and he knew, he just knew that God loved him and was calling him. Just like that he repented and was born-again. Then, it was “ all of a sudden” he was converted and discipled into a man of God, trained to preach and pastor.
My husband and I have lived our lives responding to those challenging offerings, giving all that we could to see churches built and established in the United States and around the world. We believe in call to "Go ye into all the world" If someone would have told me 39 years ago, coming into Gods family as a single girl that one day I would be offering my son, my treasure, back to God I wouldn’t have believed it.
What is your treasure? There where your treasure is, is your heart also. I would be a liar if I wrote that giving my treasure to God is easy, it's not. I can say that giving my treasure to God is a worthy investment, it is a safe one too. The best place for my treasure to be is in the will of God.
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