Verses 19-34
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Your heart follows your treasure - just like the saying "Let me see your checkbook and I'll tell you your priorities." Randy Alcorn says that even when we don't
want to give, if we do it anyways, out of obedience, then our heart will follow, and (soon) we will be giving because we do want to. We're going to leave this world in just a short time, and we can't take anything out of it.
What are we doing for the future? For eternity? What do we dream of? What do we work for? I once heard the saying "he's so heavenly-minded that he's of no earthly good" flipped around and presented as "he's so earthly-minded that he's of no heavenly good". Which am I? Which are you?
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
It seems to me that we - people in general, 'Western' cultures in particular - spend way too much time thinking about food and clothes and cars. We say that once we're comfortably settled in life, then maybe we can think about helping other people. There's a horror of having to do without, of not having all the conveniences of life. We think that if we don't have everything that everyone else has, then we're missing out somehow... I think that if we had less, we would be happier. There would be less to have to cart around from house to house, less to protect against the mold and rats, less to worry about when you're not physically present...
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