Treasure
What do you value most?Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. (Matt 6:21) Though stories of treasures found and fortunes lost aren't that uncommon, most of us experience neither of those extremes during the course of our lives. But we all face decisions about what we will value in life.
Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?
This is an important question, and especially so during the month of mission, when we consider our calling to spread the Gospel. Seeing that the church is not the buildings neither the structures, but the church is you and me, the responsibility for mission therefore falls onto you and me. And not merely onto some specific members of the church, like missionaries or the M&D committee.
It was unthinkable that a small, despised movement from a corner of Palestine could move out to become the dominant faith of the mighty Roman Empire. The spread of the Christian church in its earliest centuries is one of the most amazing phenomena in all of human history. It is however notable that it was not only the teaching by the clerics which attracted people, but rather the way ordinary Christians gave practical and physical expression to Christian love. The faith spread as neighbours saw the lives of the believers close-up on a daily basis.
Jesus said that: "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart .. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luke 6:45)
Let us therefore turn to Psalm 119:9-16:
| 9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. 10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. 12 Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees. 13 With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. 14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches (treasure). 15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. 16 I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. (Psalms119:9-16) |
Verse 11(a): "I have hidden your word in my heart"
The word of God is crucial and central to the Christian life. Studying and obeying it helps us not only to become spiritually strong and mature,but it also fills us with the valuable treasure of God's will for us and for the world around us. Without the Bible, our relationship to God is one way: we speak to him, but he does not speak to us.
We are in need of being filled by the treasure of the word of God -- God speaking to us. Then we will not be able to do otherwise than to share that treasure.
Not only through my mouth, but also through my actions, into the world around me.
It is when my heart is filled with the treasure of his word, that I can fulfil my own calling for mission, by being a witness to Christ in this world. (Acts 1:8)
My hope is that we would all seek to have a greater longing for the word of God.
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Rev. Frikkie Botha was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and chose an IT career after school thinking he can avoid God's calling. Eventually he pursued ordained ministry in the UPCSA where he feels at home and able to live out his passion of connecting people to God and to one another. He served Premier Mine congregation in Cullinan for many years and is currently moderator of Tshwane Presbytery. He still finds Assembler programming rewarding.
