Where’s Your Treasure?
Uplook – November 2013 – Grace & Truth Magazine
Where’s Your Treasure?
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth ... But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven ... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” — Matthew 6:19-21 NIV
Years ago, heiress Susan Lawrence Dana (1862-1944) gave famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright a blank check to design a home suited for her refined entertaining.
But her social life of entertaining celebrities from around the world was continually marred by the family’s tragedies. Within twenty years she lost two infant children, her father, her mother, a close cousin and two husbands. After her third marriage ended in divorce she began opening her grand home to the meetings of various metaphysical and mystical religious groups. Searching for something that her lavish lifestyle could not provide she even began her own religious group – but still she found no peace.
Alone, unhappy and mired in financial woes, she moved into a small cottage nearby where she could look at her boarded-up home. Four years before she died the house and all of its one-of-a-kind furnishings were sold at public auction.
Sadly, even Christians can be misled into searching for happiness in earthly treasures. But eventually all these things will fail us. Whether it’s a beautiful home, friends of social distinction, a high-status career, a car with the latest options or any other treasure this world offers, a Christian’s only true peace and joy in this life comes from laying up treasures in heaven. We are reminded that the hope of being with Christ in heaven is the only treasure worth having – the only source of true and eternal contentment.
By Larry Ondrejack