WHAT IS YOUR HEART SET ON?

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow Your righteous laws.

I have suffered much; preserve my life, Lord, according to Your word.

Accept, Lord, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws.

Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law. The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from Your precepts.

Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping Your decrees to the very end.

Psalm 119:105-112

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As Christians, we are to strive every day to live our lives as Christ did, submitting ourselves to His will and way. In fact, Jesus told us that He is the Way and the Truth and the Life – the only way to God the Father. Truly, if you long for any life beyond this temporary life we have here on earth then you have to commit yourself to Jesus and place your faith and trust in Him as your Savior.

Sounds easy enough right? It would be if it weren’t for the matter of the world’s temptations which Satan, our enemy, uses to try and draw us away from the way and life of Jesus to live for the world’s offerings. We’re seduced into pursuing the desires of our own hearts instead of the desire of the heart of Christ.

Jesus sought to teach us about this danger during His Sermon on the Mount. Look at this portion of His instruction:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

Many people look at this passage and interpret it as Jesus just talking about money but that would be a shallow interpretation of what Jesus was really trying to get at here.

You see, Jesus was really getting at the matter of the heart and its area of commitment. He was and still is asking us the question, “What is your treasure?”

Hold that question for just a moment because I want to refer to the verses from the 119th Psalm in this devotion and the following words from the psalmist:

Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping Your decrees to the very end.

Note here that the psalmist proclaimed where his heart was. It was set on obedience to God’s word and he confessed that those words brought joy to his heart. They were a lamp for his feet and a light on the path he journeyed called life.

For the psalmist, God’s word was his treasure and as a result, that’s where his heart was. And because His heart was there, his life was impacted in every way by God’s instruction. It really is the central theme in this psalm as we have been breaking it down section by section.

So today, this devotion given to me by the Spirit of the Living God would ask you as Jesus does, “What is your treasure?”

You see, too often we hold onto the wrong treasure. We hold onto things of the world that are fleeting, here today and possibly gone tomorrow. Jesus cautioned us about this when He said:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

In other words, don’t build up treasure that will perish and leave you with nothing but an empty heart.

Let me translate this into something you can maybe relate to better.

I have ministered to many people who have had losses in relationship, either through death or break up. In many of those cases, the person experiencing loss is devastated, consumed by grief and sorrow. They feel a void in their life that they feel can’t be refilled again and struggle with just going through the days, months, and even years after losing someone they held dear, someone they had made their treasure in life.

Remember the words of Jesus? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. When you place a person as your treasure, your heart is with them and when they are no longer with you, your heart is void of its treasure, bankrupt and broken. The same applies for people who have made money as their treasure and then lost it. There are any number of other examples I could use but I think you can see the problem with the matter of what we choose to be our treasure and the impact it can have on our heart when we select the wrong things to value most.

So what are we to do? How can we ensure that our hearts will not experience emptiness and brokenness? Where can we find a treasure that will endure and persevere through the things of life, now and forever?

The answer is found in Jesus Christ.

You see, as Christians, Jesus is to be our treasure, the One we value above all else. He loved and treasured us so much that He was willing to give up everything including His own life to save us. His heart was set on His Father’s desires even if that meant He was to die for us. Don’t you think the least we could do is cherish Him the same?

In saying this, I’m not saying that you stop loving a parent or a spouse or a child or even enjoy some of the things the world might offer as long as those things aren’t sinful. I’m just saying that there should be no greater treasure in our life than Jesus. He is the One we should value more than anything so that He and He alone will dominate our heart.

For when this happens, when we allow our heart to be filled with the treasure that is Christ Jesus, then every product if our heart will be a product of Him. We will live the way He lived. We will speak the way He spoke and still speaks today. We will think as He thought and thinks. All that we are will be what Jesus was and is.

In other words, we will truly be Christians.

Friends, my prayer today is that you will examine yourselves and ask, “What is my heart set on? What is my treasure?” If the answer is anything outside of Jesus, I urge you to change your commitment today, cherishing and revering Jesus above all other things in your life. I can tell you from experience, that’s a change you will never regret.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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