Matthew 6:21

I’ve always been intrigued by the Lord’s use of imagery. For me, scriptures using the heart as a symbol are particularly fascinating. The heart can take on so many different meanings. I have a very limited understanding of biology, but I do know the heart is central to the health of the body. Likewise, the location of the heart is central to the spirit’s health.

In the spiritual sense, I often wonder where exactly my heart is. I have seen countless examples of the blessings and spiritual power granted those who have yielded their entire hearts unto God. I remember once analyzing their lives to learn how they had done it. It seemed so difficult to me. I don’t tell my heart when to beat or when to race; it works on its own. How then can I change something I cannot control? I wanted something tangible that I could change, but I could not find it.

Eventually, I found the answer in the book of Matthew, sixth chapter, 21 verse: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I was surprised when I realized Christ had taught that our treasures determine where our hearts are, not the other way around. If I wanted to change my heart, I needed to change my treasure.

The promise to those who lay up treasures in heaven is significant, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

C.S. Lewis also explained this relationship between our hearts and our treasures in Mere Christianity: “Christ says, ‘Give Me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked-the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’”

This was the secret. The people I had been observing had all made major changes to their treasures. They had done more than just make convenient alterations to align their lives with Christ’s teachings. Many had made enormous sacrifices, but each was better and happier for having made them. In fact, once surrendering their hearts to the Lord, they had actually become more free, making this “the only surrender which is also a victory” (Maxwell, Plow in Hope).

Success is not the product of one taking fewer falls; it is the result of constantly picking oneself up. It seems counter intuitive and could not happen at a less opportune time, but when we fall, we must learn to “rend [our] heart, and not [our] garments” (Joel 2:13).