“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
Matthew 6:21(NLT)
Sarah was smart, savvy, and a successful attorney. Because of her success, she felt she was doing the Lord’s work. No stranger to accolades from her family, friends, and colleagues, she grew to expect that everyone was in awe of her talent and skills. Sarah was thankful for her place in life but attributed her success to hard work and the many sacrifices she had made to get to where she was. This was not the humility she had been taught while attending church. Her parents strictly enforced that every Sunday would be dedicated to worship, but as an adult, she had moved further and further away from the Lord. She felt that helping others through her work as an attorney was enough. Sarah didn’t have a heart of gratitude for the many blessings and doors of opportunities God had given her, and now that she was successful, she didn’t feel the need for an intimate relationship with Him.
Ephesians 5:5 (NLT) says, “You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.” Money and success can be very alluring, especially for those who have humble beginnings, but these are often traps that can keep us separated from God. Sarah tells others that she loves the Lord, but there’s no evidence in her life to back that up. For the most part, she does what pleases her, and true and spiritual worship of our Almighty God is the furthest from her mind.
Jesus Christ said in Luke 6:44-45(ESV), “44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” The fruit that Jesus Christ is speaking about in this passage are produced from what is in a person’s heart. Will they have a heart to please God and produce good fruit, or will they have a heart to please themselves and produce fruits of selfishness and pride? Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 6:21 that whatever our treasures are, that is where our hearts are as well. So, if our treasure is in looking successful and being rich, if we value those things above all else, that paints the truest portrait of what is in our hearts, and it indicates the kind of fruit we will bear.
Sarah’s family invited her numerous times to fellowship with them, but she used work as an excuse and said she was too busy. Sarah didn’t recognize that she wasn’t self-made, she was God made. In truth, her family was the conduit, but those invitations were from God, calling her to come close and to remember that she belongs to Him. He extends this invitation to all of us, but many ignore it like Sarah, and claim they’ve got too much to do. Our hearts are far from God when we do things like this. We desperately need to hear His Word, but we refuse to put ourselves in places where it is being taught. We deny the very Word that would cause us to produce fruit for God’s Kingdom.
Psalms 9:17(NLT) says, “The wicked will go down to the grave. This is the fate of all the nations who ignore God.” The world’s sin is that it refuses to know God and ignore His finished work through Jesus Christ. We must not allow that to be said of us, instead, our relationship with God must be our number one focus. Understand that it is impossible to be too busy to give thanks and praise to our Creator. He is holy and perfect in every way. He’s all-powerful and all-knowing, and He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins. God chose US on which to lavish His unconditional love. He deserves our continuous thankfulness and praise.
Romans 12:1 tells us that the way to demonstrate this gratitude is to give our whole beings to God. He wants every drop of us, faults and all, because He’s going to transform us from the inside out. Some of us understand God’s transformative power, but we run from it. We place the big titles and fancy trappings above being a son or daughter of God, but this is the worst mistake any of us could ever make. Sarah found that out the hard way when she faced a very troubling situation at her job, one that had her back against the wall. It looked like the only way out of it was to take the blame for a bad call. She’d lose her reputation for winning cases, and that kept her up late at night. Finally, she turned to the Lord, but as a last resort, and our Heavenly Father deserves so much more than that.
Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:24, 33(NLT), “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. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” We can’t be divided in our minds and hearts. Jesus Christ commands us to put God first in all that we do. In Luke 10:27, he tells us that this means we must love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. When we love God this way and have faith in Him, He will reward us, but we must honor Him with all that we are and make our relationship with Him the highest priority of our lives. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“God Must Be Your Highest Priority”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.