Pirates for Jesus (aka Treasure Hunting)

Remember the verse that Jesus spoke in the New Testament- “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also?”

I guess what breaks my heart is that the church has construed this verse to mean that you should tithe and give the church your money. And the truth is, we should bring the tithe into the house of the Lord-but this verse doesn’t tell us that. In Luke, it may suggest something much different. It talks about seeking the kingdom of God and selling our possessions and giving them to the poor. So let me ask you this. What if we looked at Jesus’ actions to shed light on His teachings? Jesus was a homeless man without a job during his ministry. If he didn’t have any money, then what was his treasure?

The modern preacher uses the illustration, “Show me your checkbook, and I’ll be able to see your priorities in life.” i.e. where your treasure is. But this is all with the basic premise of a materialistic society that thinks treasure is monetary wealth. In Mozambique, in the dumps outside of the city where children go through trash to find food and shelter, with no jobs or money, where is their treasure? Since they have no money, is that teaching of Christ not applicable to them? They don't have a monthly budget or a checkbook, so if you believe that preacher’s illustration, it wouldn't even apply to the poor. But let me ask you again in another way….

What does God consider His treasures? And what would happen if we treasured what God treasures and lived our life in a way that our priorities reflected that?

Here's what I'm suggesting: I believe that God’s treasure is His people, and since the beginning of Time, God’s heart has been with His people. His entire plan was to redeem and reconcile with His treasure. Where His treasure was, there His heart was also.

People were the crowning jewel of the creation. The world was not yet complete until God placed man and woman in it. God created man to have a relationship with….man is the only piece of His creation with a free will and an eternal spirit. The loss of that relationship through sin is why God sent His own Son to die. Would God send Christ to die for something that didn’t really matter, or someone He didn’t treasure? Probably not.

For God to plan to take the form of a man and live a life in order to die for His people….this act of God declares that people are His treasure. Men and women are incredibly valuable in His eyes. Nothing else matters to God….He even gave man the power of dominion over the rest of creation!

What if the church today treated people as their treasure? What would be the byproduct? I have a few ideas…..I don’t think that for churches, buildings and programs would be a top priority. I don’t think fundraising for those same buildings and programs would be the focus. I don’t think the church could truly allow the “least of these” to remain poor and hurting in their city. It doesn’t seem that it could happen if God’s treasure was also ours.

And if God’s treasure was also ours, would we wait inside our Sunday School classes, or on our church property hoping the lost and hurting would come to us and ask for help? Or would we follow the example of Christ who left heaven to go to the hurting….. even when Christ was here, we see His example of going out-feeding the poor and healing the sick WHILE He was still preaching and teaching and discipling. (See previous blog on “Magnets or Viruses”)

I’m afraid that we have compartmentalized and departmentalized church to the point that we think we are only supposed to follow one aspect of Christ and that someone else is supposed to pick up the rest of the slack. We think if we do the preaching, others should do the discipling, others should be worshiping God, or others should be feeding the poor. I’m not sure where it came from, but this idea of only having to do one thing for God, or just live for one scripture doesn’t seem to be biblical.

All of our lives are to be sacrificed for God for the purpose of redeeming His treasure. If we laid up for ourselves treasures in heaven, and we truly believed that treasures weren’t good works, but lives touched for the kingdom (see Isaiah 58), I believe it would revolutionize the way we do what we do in the body of Christ. Don’t you?