Feb. 13: REAL TREASURES

I recently heard a person described as being rich in the things that money can’t buy. That’s a rare description. It indicates a person committed to swimming against the tide. If modern suburbia is noted for anything it is for the excess of things. Living in any major metropolitan area is to find your self constantly rubbing shoulders with people who have one major goal: the accumulation of toys. I met a childless couple who had just bought a huge house and asked me “Why did we do this?”
It is like an infection gets in the value system and causes a craving for possessions. Parents will work, even hold a second job, to buy more “stuff” for kids who hate ‘stuff”, they have enough. Yet, young adults will confess to me that they find themselves doing what their parents did to them: soothing a guilty conscience with things. Wake up! People don’t need riches and stuff. They need a value system that can’t be bought and sold. What Jesus said about moth-eating, rust-destroying, thief-stealing riches just won’t bring meaning to life, neither here nor after death.
In Matthew 6:20(NIV) Jesus said “Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven.”
What kind of treasures is that? The kind that money can’t buy. You can’t go to a psychiatrist or counselor in a “fifty-minute hour”session, regardless of how big your bank account and buy “love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control>’ (Galatians 5:22 NIV) Jewels money can’t buy! “The fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.” (Ephesians 5:9 NIV)
Ask a trusted friend to evaluate your life. Are you rich in things bought by money or in things that are the fruit of a relationship with God? If your goal is “things”, that’s what you leave. If your goal is spiritual and moral values, you will leave many people richer for having known you.

“Help me not to be deceived by “fool’s gold”, Loving Father. Open
the eyes of my value system to true value. Amen”