What Is Our Chief Concern?

Richard Thetford

Where is our heart today? Or, perhaps, the question should be "What are we concerned about today?" Are we more concerned about our clothes, car, or home than our neighbors' souls, our children's souls, or our own soul? Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

The all important question, therefore, is, "Where is my treasure?" Jesus in essence declared; "Don't set your heart on worldly materialism; instead, let your interest be in that which lasts forever." In Jesus' time, just as in ours, great stress was laid on personal apparel. Jesus was showing that we should not be anxious about something the moths will eventually eat. He said in Matthew 6:28-30, "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"

We should never put undue value on clothing, or on any other material or worldly thing. Jesus emphasized that we shouldn't worry about earthly things. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33). Are we out chasing the advertisers' concept of the great American dream? Or are we laying up treasure in heaven?