First Series – Sermon Six
Original by George MacDonald
Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie
Does God give us the things our hearts desire, or does He give us what to desire? Here in this pivotal sermon and theme of series one, MacDonald tells us what The Treasure is. It is Jesus! “The Son came to be Life, before our eyes and in our hearts, that which we were created to be!” God has given us the object of our desires. It is not something, but someone. When we desire the Son, then we will find the Treasure! “This love is what we grope for in our darkness, being driven by the hunger of our desire.”
“Take great joy in the Eternal! His gifts are coming, and they are all your heart desires!” Psalms 37:4 Voice
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Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.
The Heart of the Treasure
The mission of life is to understand the words of Jesus, for in that understanding lies the Word Himself. Receiving Jesus is receiving the Father, which gives us Life. This Life is the original and higher Life we all seek.
The Word that is Jesus Himself is the Life through which we live. Any word worthy of being called Truth is food for us. And how much more the Word, not as an abstract law, but as a dynamic relationship of body, soul, heart, and will to Him who gave birth to us all! The Son came to be Life, before our eyes and in our hearts, revealing what we were created to be! This so that we might see the Truth in Him and cry out for it in ourselves. The Son is The Truth, not as understood, but as understanding, the living, being, doing, and creating Truth. “I am the Truth,” Jesus said. As we are like Him, then we too will understand the Truth!
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The whole meaning here is not apparent on the surface but must be sought after because of its depth and simplicity. It is so comprehensive that there is nothing more to be said and everything to be done when understood.
Why not store up treasure on earth? Because here, the moth, rust, and thief will consume them.
And so, we would lose all our treasure? Yes, our treasure is taken by the moth, rust, and thief.
Does the Lord say the reason for not having treasures is their transitory and corruptible nature? No. Jesus adds a, for: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Of course, the heart will be where the treasure is, but what has that to do with the argument?
Simply stated: What is attached to the treasure lives as the treasure. Therefore, the heart that inhabits a treasure-house where moth and rust corrupt will suffer the same ravages as the treasure, becoming rusted and moth-eaten. Many a man and woman, seen as fair and flourishing, live with a rusty moth-eaten heart—a corrupted heart, hidden within their appearance of strength or beauty.
“But this is only a metaphor.”
True, but is the reality intended, more or less than the metaphor? Do rust and moth mean more than diseases, the heart more profound than just the human organ? Rather, the heart is the center of your true self from which Life flows!
If God sees our hearts as corroded with the rust of cares, riddled with holes by the worms of ambition and greed, then He sees it as it is, for He sees things only as they are. One day, we too will see it as it is. Our hearts are affected by corrupting influences and prey to the most unpleasant of diseases.
These diseases are not limited to only those who worship money; those who live and work to accumulate wealth. It applies equally to all who worship the temporary. Those who are seeking the praises of men more than the blessings of God. Those who make a show in this world of their wealth, intellect, art, power, or talent of any kind and gather for themselves delightful opinions to treasure in their earthly storehouses.
Not only to these but to all temporary pleasures, pleasures to the senses of any kind. Those that are lawfully or unlawfully indulged in as the joy or center of our being. The harm is not that the pleasures are false, like illusions of magic, for they are genuinely pleasurable. Nor is it that they pass away and leave disappointment behind. That would only be for the better. But the harm lies in that we were created in the image of the everlasting God. That the immortal, infinitely good God is housed with these temporary things that are fading and corrupting us, that we cling to as our good. That we cling to until we are infected and consumed with their diseases! These diseases assume a seemingly superior nature to our true one and are merely wickedness and death. These diseases drag us into darkness, into holes in the earth where our budding wings wither in the dampness and fall off our shoulders. Instead, we were created for open fields and mountains, for spreading our butterfly wings to the sun in the open air. Here they are strengthened by their flights until they are strong enough to carry the God-born into the presence of their Father in heaven. Herein lies their harm.
He whose heart is sound because it lives in the treasure-house of heaven may be tempted of the devil but will first be led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Jesus is the Truth in us, the Truth in which “we live, and move, and have our being.” This Life is not the noun – knowledge, but the verb – understand, the dynamic of living, being, doing, and creating!
The Scripture says we cannot love God and money, but the truth is we cannot love God and anyTHING else! EveryTHING else is a disease of the heart, if held tightly, trusted, and treasured.
Love of the temporary things and pleasures of this life causes us to be out of harmony with our true hearts and in disharmony with the Heart of God! They will destroy our budding wings, stop our transformation, and keep us from spreading our Heaven storming butterfly wings!
Treasure – Introductory Blog
THE WORD
To understand the words of our Lord is the business of life. For it is the main road to the understanding of The Word himself. And to receive him is to receive the Father, and so to have Life in ourselves. And Life, the higher, the deeper, the simpler, the original, is the business of life.
The Son came forth to be, before our eyes and in our hearts, that which he had made us for, that we might behold the truth in him, and cry out for the living God, who, in the highest sense of all is The Truth, not as understood, but as understanding, living, and being, doing and creating the truth. “I am the truth,” said our Lord; and by those who are in some measure like him in being the truth, the Word can be understood. Let us try to understand him.
THE HEART
That what is with the treasure must fare as the treasure; that the heart which haunts the treasure-house where the moth and rust corrupt, will be exposed to the same ravages as the treasure, will itself be rusted and moth-eaten.
Nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship Mammon, who give their lives, their best energies to the accumulation of wealth: it applies to those equally who in any way worship the transitory; who seek the praise of men more than the praise of God; who would make a show in the world by wealth, by taste, by intellect, by power, by art, by genius of any kind, and so would gather golden opinions to be treasured in a storehouse of earth.
But the hurt lies in this—that the immortal, the infinite, created in the image of the everlasting God, is housed with the fading and the corrupting, and clings to them as its good—clings to them till it is infected and interpenetrated with their proper diseases, which assume in it a form more terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind, that which is mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other, Therein lies the hurt.
THE TEMPORARY
He whose heart is sound because it haunts the treasure-house of Heaven.