Your Heart’s Treasure

WEEKLY OVERVIEW

In our first week of Catalyst, we’ll explore seven answers to the heart’s most important question: “Why?” Until we understand why spending time alone with God every day is worth the time and energy it takes, we’ll never be able to develop consistency or go as deep into God’s presence as we were created for. May you realize both the depth of your need and the goodness and availability of your Father as you discover your why.

DEVOTIONAL

In Matthew 6:19–21, Jesus teaches us another important spiritual principle we need to know to discover the value of time alone with God. Scripture says:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 

You are the child of a loving God who is desperately jealous for the entirety of your heart. Matthew 6:19–21 illustrates a truth that spans beyond this world and into the fullness of eternity. You and I have an opportunity in this life to either give our hearts to God and receive an eternal reward or to give our hearts to the world and accumulate rewards that pass away with us. We can either surrender all that we are and have to the perfect, pleasing plans of our heavenly Father or seek fulfillment, pleasure, status, and wealth in a life as fleeting as a breath (Psalm 144:4). 

You and I have an opportunity in this life to either give our hearts to God and receive an eternal reward or to give our hearts to the world and accumulate rewards that pass away with us.

You have a chance every morning to invest your heart in the kingdom of God. Each new day requires a new decision on your part. Will today be spent seeking God or seeking the world? There is no middle ground, and only one choice will produce eternal fruit. Only one choice produces eternal reward. 

Only one choice will produce true satisfaction and abundant life. 

God is after your heart above all else. He cares more about how you’re doing than what you can do for him. He doesn’t need you. He wants you. Beginning every day with the decision to give God your heart, to let him have all of you, is the path to living a life with real, eternal value. Investing your life in heaven is simple but incredibly countercultural. That’s why, if you want your time, energy, and talents to matter on an eternal level, you must make the choice to live for God, to live for heaven, before you are inundated with the cares and ways of the world around you. 

As you enter guided prayer, choose to engage God with the entirety of your heart. Don’t just offer him action; offer him affection. Don’t just bring the good parts of you, but come before him openly and honestly. Experience what it’s like to be met with the reward of God’s unconditional love and grace.

GUIDED PRAYER

1. Meditate on the truth of God’s word. Allow Scripture to fill you with a desire to store up the treasure of your heart in heaven. 

2. In what ways are you laying up treasure on earth? Where are you seeking fulfillment and provision from the world rather than God? What parts of your life are not God’s best for you? What parts of your life won’t produce an eternal reward?

3.  Come before God openly and honestly. Give him your heart. Tell him how you feel and how you’re doing. Ask him for the grace to sense his response. Rest in an experience with God’s manifest presence and receive his grace. 

GO . . .

Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest, “Joy means the perfect fulfillment of that for which I was created and regenerated.” You were created and regenerated for unhindered communion with your heavenly Father. Experiencing true joy in this life will be the result of casting aside anything that chains your heart to this world. Live today for God alone and discover the wealth of life that comes from storing up your treasure in heaven.