“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Matthew 6:19-21
This is going to be the second of our battlegrounds we will encounter in this lengthy unit on “Called to Love.” Take a few minutes and evaluate how you spend your time on a typical day. On a typical workday (not weekend), how many hours (or fraction of an hour) do you spend on each of the following:
___Sleep
___Personal hygiene (shower, hair, etc.)
___Work (or school if you are a student)
___Social time (any time spent talking or hanging out with friends)
___Hobbies
___Family (tending to kids, hanging out with spouse)
___Keeping the home (cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry)
___TV
___Scrolling on the phone
___Prayer, Scripture Reading
___Exercise
___Other
If the total adds up to 24 hours, how are the hours of each day apportioned?
Now take this exercise and stretch it out over the course of a week. Maybe on a given day, you don’t have time for hobbies, but what does that look like on a given week? Maybe you cook in bulk, so that doesn’t need to be done every day. What does that look like over the course of a week. In the “other” category, add a line for worship. We don’t do that every day, but how much time per week is given to worship. A final category under “other” in the course of a week might be “volunteer work.” Do we offer time to someone (cooking for someone who is sick) or something (volunteering for a sports team or a scout troop) that we are not compensated for?
Where does the time go? Take out the needed things, like work and taking care of children, and we get to more discretionary things like TV, scrolling, exercise, and prayer. Do we skip out on sleep in order to scroll on the phone, or watch TV? Do we neglect exercise? Is there much time to pray or read Scripture? Is weekly worship a priority?
What do we spend most money on? If you look back at credit card bills over the last year, what do you spend the most money on? Let’s put aside required expenses like mortgage, insurance, car payment, utilities and groceries. Where does the discretionary money go? Whether we save for retirement or spend every penny says something about us. Same thing with cooking in or eating out. How much do we spend on entertainment, clothing and hobbies. And how much do we give to the church and to charity.
Most people have a limited amount of money, and all of us have a limited amount of time. Some people are richer than others when it comes to money, but all of us get the same twenty-four hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus warns against putting effort into something that will ultimately have no return. He says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves to not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20) The term ROI means “return on investment.” When people invest money in something, they want to know what they can expect to receive in return. Jesus is warning us that we should not invest in things that are temporary. Everything we own and everything we spend our time working for is temporary. Someone else will eventually own our home. Our cars will eventually break down and go to the scrap heap. Our clothes will wear out. When we are old and less mobile, most of our hobbies will cease. On our deathbed, the TV shows we watched and even the knowledge we acquired won’t matter. What we scroll and read on the phone probably won’t matter tonight. And yet we continue to invest in things where the ROI is low or nothing. Jesus encourages us to invest in heavenly things, things that will not break or fail or be owned by someone else.
He also tells us that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21) Where we put our time and where we put our money is where our hearts go as well. If we give the first fruits of our time each day to God, and each week we give our first hours to worship, then our hearts will go where we have put our time. If we give the first fruits of our earnings to God through charitable giving, our hearts will go first to charity. When God is an afterthought, and when we give only the leftovers, then our hearts will see God as an afterthought, and service to others will come only after we have served ourselves. There are a few hard questions to ask ourselves—do we give God the first or the last, the best or the least of what we have? And do we see what we have as things we have earned, or as blessings from God? What we love and who we love and how much time we spend with the people and the things we love says a lot about our priorities.
Do I love God or my phone more? The answer is what do I spend more time doing? Texting or scrolling or praying?
Audit your calendar and your credit card bill/checkbook, and see where your treasure and your time are going. See how much of each is going to God and charity. And then ask yourself does this reconcile with how I want to see myself, or how I want God to see, and ultimately judge me?
Lord, thank You for the gift of another day. In my day today, help me to live it in a balance that honors You. Give me the wisdom to not only see what is most important but to make important things a priority. Help me to touch all the bases today, to choose to spend time with You, to use my talents, to take care of responsibilities, to nurture relationships, to have time for personal health and growth as well as time for rest. Give me the wisdom to negotiate all of these things in a way that honors You, serves others, and takes care of my body in a proper way. Amen.
Where the time and treasure go, that’s where the heart follows. Make loving God and serving others a priority, and your heart will transform into a heart of love and service.
