In Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus said, “”Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Yesterday in the news I read a story that just blew my mind. Back in 1953 Francis Crick published his discoveries about DNA in a journal. And apparently, about a month before this was published, Francis wrote a hand written letter to his son, who was then 12 years old. The letter basically stated that Francis Crick and his colleague had discovered new information about DNA, and included in the letter a hand drawn sketch of what a DNA strand looked like. Well, recently at an auction, this hand writtend letter to his son was sold for over 6 million dollars! That’s $6,000,000 for a hand written letter about a DNA discovery.
Now, I don’t know who paid that much money for a hand written letter, but that is a HUGE amount of money! The thing is, for that auction to reach this vast sum of money – many people must have been bidding on this item and willing to pay large sums for this hand written letter on a piece of paper. I just can not imagine why anyone would want to pay that much money for something like this. What if someone spills coffee on it? What if it gets accidentally torn or thrown in the trash by someone who doesn’t realize what it is? And besides that – It’s JUST A PIECE OF PAPER with some ink on it!!! It will be gone one day!
People spend all amounts of their money on earthly items, some perhaps a bit more important to the average person than a piece of paper, but yet – still earthly items that will one day be gone. Now, I can understand spending money on some nice things to decorate our home with, clothing to wear, food to eat, etc., but yet even those things will one day be gone. They have NO LASTING VALUE! The only thing that has value for ALL of eternity is what we do with the life God gave us, and what we do to reach others for Christ.
Jesus said, store up treasure in heaven…spend your time and efforts for something that outlasts time! Seek first the KINGDOM OF GOD!
If we spend an extreme amount of money on a piece of paper, then we’re going to want to keep it under lock and key, protect it, insure it, etc., we would spend more money, time, and effort protecting what we spent that money on for fear that we might lose it. Well, all of the time and efforts we spend growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ, living the life HE has planned for us, and reaching others with the GOSPEL can NEVER be lost, it has ETERNAL VALUE!
What do we value?