In Matthew 6:21 Jesus said “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” I look at our treasure as our “values”. What I hear Jesus saying here is that where our values are there will be our desires also. He uses strong language here when he says “the desires of our heart”. That is huge! I have heard it said and for many years that “people will always do what they really want to do”.
As I think of this in relation to our values it makes sense! Whatever we value or treasure in our lives directly impacts and greatly influences our desires. I mean think about it, if we value something then we will naturally desire whatever it is that it takes to acquire what we value. Our values impact our desires and our desires impact our actions! It seems to me that most of us human beings do whatever it is that we really want to do! I know we say we want to lose weight or quit this habit or the other but we continue to engage in that behavior even though we know it is harmful to us. I am no psychologist but I really think our values or treasures are what is controlling our desires and our desires for sure control our actions!
The underlying foundation of our lives is our values. The things we value most in our lives directly influence our actions like a computer program running in the background of our desktop! Our values work much like a firewall in our brain! They stop us from doing many of the things “we say” we would like to do but don’t do! Our talk is sort of like our key board on our computer we can type or click on whatever we want but the firewall prevents the action from happening in our lives. We think we want it and we may say we want it but our real desires controlled by our values kicks in and prevents us from attaining whatever it is we say we want!
Therefore if I want to truly change my actions and habits I must work on my values or the things I treasure in life rather than my behavior! My behavior seems to always want to go back to what I truly value. What I value in life is that firewall in my brain that keeps blocking my surface desires and only letting in those things I truly value!
These are just some thoughts on our “treasure” in life. I would welcome your comments and thoughts.
Really Thinking,
Pastor Alan
Posted by pastoradh 