TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21
Read: Matthew 6:21-24
Listen: Matthew 6
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Jesus wraps up this teaching on finding security in possessions with a powerful statement—where your treasure is, there your heart is. He illustrates it by telling the crowd they can’t serve two masters. They have to pick. It’s either God or possessions. They would’ve been familiar with the idea of serving a master. They lived in a kingdom ruled by an empire. On top of that, some were likely household servants. They knew what it was like for someone to have authority in their life.
Jesus’s radical statement feels less radical to us. We vote for our leaders and work for bosses, not masters. Maybe that’s why we find it easy to convince ourselves we can serve God and chase after possessions. But Jesus doesn’t say it’s difficult to serve both God and money. He doesn’t say it takes a lot of planning and discipline to build a life around God and what we can accumulate. He says you just can’t do it.
Jesus calls us to choose what matters to us and where we will find our security. It’s like Jesus is saying we can either serve God and use money—or we will end up serving money and trying to use God. It’s all about our hearts.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Open your journal to reflect on what you are serving. One way to ask ourselves who our master is would be to answer the question, “What’s the thing you are chasing?” Name the thing(s) you’ll feel like you have made it or you think you’ll be secure when you get. Create an “I’m chasing these things” list in your journal and write down what comes to mind. Ask yourself if those things point toward serving something other than God.
NEW TESTAMENT READING PLAN
Join us this year as we read through the New Testament.
Today’s reading is Ephesians 5.
Download a printable PDF of the BTW week here.
