Countlesss Treasures

Mark 12:41-44 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. 43 So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”

I was reading the passage of Mark 12 this morning; you begin to see there are two common themes in this passage, the matters of our heart and our money. These are two topics deeply intertwined, revealing much about ourselves regardless of what we may say. The matters of the heart are many times truly secret, many times the spoken word is not the truth, but a facade that we seek to present. Many times our money is the truth that is presented no matter what is spoken. I have heard one of my pastors speak many times of peering into our checkbooks, and there would be the evidence of where our heart lies. Sadly, we say we love God, but we likely resemble the rich people in Jesus’ teaching above. It has been said, and it is a great truth, have you ever given till it hurts? Have you ever given back to God all that you had been entrusted with? Have you poured yourself into ministry financially, or yet even more challenging, with your whole heart emotionally?

In the middle of chapter twelve, is a scribe asking Jesus what the greatest commandment is. 29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” This particular scribe understood the passage in his heart, and Jesus commended him greatly. He truly understood what it means, as Jesus showed us, to love God above all else, yes, even money. There was no evidence of Jesus placing any value on money in his heart, only the testimony of him pointing out our hearts value of it. In this passage alone, Jesus eludes their trap of a question of taxes due to Caesar.

I am no different than you; I have chased money, dreams, material possessions for most of my life. By the grace of God, he has stripped me of mostly all my material gains, changed my view of them, and still is doing a great work in me by hammering out the pride of possessions that we all seek by worldly standards. I can humbly tell you that I have given back to God from great joy, and given when it hurts. I have placed my trust in kingdom finances, that a worldly economic systems ridicules. You cannot outgive God when you give with a pure heart. We do not know the outcome of the poor widow, but we know that the way Jesus spoke of her, she has countless treasures in heaven with him today.