Treasure on Earth
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 07 Sep 2008 in From Steve's Study ::
People have always been fascinated with treasure. Whether it’s the search for sunken treasure in Spanish Galleons, or trying to find the place where “X” marks the spot on a pirate map, there has always been something elusive and attractive about stumbling across treasure.
This hunting for treasure still goes on today. Indeed, this is largely what drives the whole “Reality TV” phenomenon. Contestants see a treasure buried at the end of the show and will sing, dance, build, or just “survive” with all they’ve got in order to win it. The whole gambling industry is based on the premise that if you just persist in “picking”, scratching or pulling that handle, you will certainly stumble upon a great treasure.
The irony is, of course, that treasure holds out a false hope – it can never deliver on its promises. Why else do you think many lottery winners rue the day they won their money, as they look back over families broken apart, friendships ruined and vast sums of money lost? Why is it that so many of those who “win” on the pokies take only a couple of months, or even days, to put everything they have won back through the machines? Why do we not see winners of “Australian Idol” or the equivalent living happy and contented lives, or even still part of the music industry?
The problem is that treasure can never fulfill its promises because it is, by its very nature, passing. Jesus said as much in Matthew 6:19f when he says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and were thieves break in an steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”
What Jesus is saying is this: there is only one treasure that can truly satisfy us. There is only one treasure that we can never lose. That treasure is the joy of knowing God and of accepting his offer of eternal life. That is a treasure that is worth searching for!
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