Matthew 6:19-24 – Proper attitude toward treasure and wealth

Like fasting, followers of Christ must also put Him first with regards to earthly treasures. This is needful because man has the tendency to place importance on money and earthly treasures, over that of loving and serving God. Here we are told not to hoard earthy treasures that are not only temporal, but also subject to decay and rust. Furthermore, they can be stolen. Instead, Jesus asks us to store or build up for ourselves eternal and heavenly treasures. That’s because treasures are durable and not subject to corruption, and can never be stolen.

Verse 20 implies that believers must begin to do so now, while on earth. Why? It’s because whatever becomes our primary desire in life would also cause us to set our heart and passion on it. It’s true that what captures our mind really captures us. But how do store heavenly treasure now? The key is to get our priorities in life right. We do so by living for God. We do so by being conscious of His presence in every moment of our lives. We must think, say and act to please our Heavenly Father.  

The Lord Jesus went on to illustrate this with the eye being the lamp of the body in verses 22-23. This is also a plea to be rightly focused in life. Our priority in life is to fix our eyes on God. Of course this cannot be done literally because we cannot see God with our naked eyes. So it means that our first consideration in everything should be God. Here, Jesus is also telling us to be careful what we look at physically. A fascination can happen when we become obsessed with what we are longing at long enough. It will literally control our desires and lead us to take a certain course of action. So it’s important what our physical eyes look at all the time. When we are not focused rightly, we can’t see things in perspective. And when we can’t see things in perspective, we will forever be going in the wrong direction. Again the Lord is talking about priority.  

Without a doubt what Jesus tells us here is true. We simply cannot have two bosses. We cannot serve money and God at the same time. Try to serve two bosses at the same time will put us in a dilemma concerning who we should give priority. The appeal here is for us to make God our priority. Someday when we are looking in retrospect we will realize that putting God on the top of our priority list has been the best wisest decision in life.