Treasuring earthly things will make you sick because earthly belongings and earthly wealth are rotten things.
In Matthew 6:19 – 24 Jesus says…
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Last week we learned that: Your treasure is what you fix your eye upon and what your eye is fixed upon becomes your master. The question is: What do you treasure? Do you treasure money or do you treasure Christ?
In verse 19 Jesus tells us that we should “not lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal”. If you eat rotten food you get sick. The same is true with treasuring earthly things because earthly things are rotten things.
If we treasure earthly things that are really rotten things then we will become sick with devastation, depression, hopeless, greed and covetousness. Treasuring earthly things will make you sick because earthly belongings and earthly wealth are rotten things.
I remember when I was younger. I grew up in a poor home with very little. When my shoes got a hole in them we fixed them with duct tape because we couldn’t afford to buy new shoes. When we went to McDonald’s my sister and I would split a double cheeseburger and a Coke because we couldn’t afford a Happy Meal.
We didn’t have a color TV. We didn’t have cable or a satellite dish. New clothes for us consisted of hand-me-downs from friends or a trip to the Goodwill for used clothing. We drove 15-20 year old vehicles that didn’t have air conditioning and they were always broke down.
We didn’t heat our old rented farmhouse with central heat nor did we have central air. Our home was heated with an old wood burning stove in the basement during the winter and in the summertime we cooled the house by opening the windows and using electric fans for air movement.
This environment was a great place to cultivate contentment with very little but instead of contentment growing within my heart another root began to grow called greed. I looked at what everyone else had and I longed to have what they had and I longed for the comfort that I thought only money could buy.
Greed and covetousness began to take root in my heart. I began to dream about a new life with better earthly belongings and wealth. I began to treasure what Jesus says will rot away. And when I couldn’t have what I treasured or when what I treasured got destroyed or stolen I lived in the sickness of despair, depression and hopelessness.
Your treasure is what you fix your eye upon and what your eye is fixed upon will become your master. If you treasure earthly things then you treasure rotten things and rotten things make you sick. But the good news is that Christ came to set us free from our slaveholders.
Jesus is the master that brings life from death. He is our healer. When you trust him for salvation you become his treasure and he becomes your treasure and then your sickness is healed. So the question is: What do you treasure? Do you treasure money or do you treasure Christ?