“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21). Our heart’s ability to treasure is one of the most important attributes for us to have. At its best, a treasuring heart is indistinguishable from the pure love of Christ. After all, to treasure something is to love it. The Savior doesn’t warn us against laying up for ourselves treasures upon Earth because worldly treasures are necessarily evil or corrupting, although they can be. God doesn’t really care if we love jogging or peanut butter parfaits or vintage muscle cars or fishing, but He does care if we love such things more than we love Him. And it is not just because He is a jealous God who can’t stand the idea of us paying attention to something besides Him. It’s because our hearts have a finite capacity for loving and treasuring things or people. We can only hold so much treasure in our hearts, and if we’ve loaded it up with concert tickets and cashmere sweaters and bookshelves and ATVs then we might not have enough room for some of the heavenly treasures that God has prepared for us. But if it were simply a matter of trying to fit rocks and small pebbles and sand into a jar, that would be one thing, But it is actually worse than that. When we set our hearts on worldly things, we carve out vaults in our heart for these things, but our infatuation with them will not last. Familiarity breeds contempt. The Rock band we love might start saying or doing things that make us feel uncomfortable or dislike them. The shiny new gadget we got last year looks lame and old and useless compared to the shiny new gadget that is on sale this year. Our favorite restaurant stops serving nachos the way it used to. Not only do we no longer treasure such things, now that moths and rust have corrupted them, or else thieves have come in and stolen them, but we have all of these little vaults in our heart that are taking up space and won’t quite fit any of the new treasures we’ve gone out to find to try and replace the old ones. Each worldly thing we set our hearts upon to treasure makes our heart smaller and less flexible and harder to treasure or value or love any new things we might find and might have liked better if only we had found them earlier. This is not how heavenly treasures work. As Jesus Christ said, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” When we lay up for ourselves treasures in Heaven, not only will neither most nor rust corrupt them nor thieves break in to steal them, but neither will familiarity breed contempt. The more that we focus on and learn about and treasure Heavenly Things, the more such things will open and expand to our view. Our heart will expand and open new chambers and greater capacities to love and cherish that were previously not available to us. The Lord promises that if we come unto Him, He will give us a new heart. I know that each and every time we come to Him, He will give us a newer and greater heart that can hold more and more treasures that will be waiting for us in heaven and will also be here with us to enrich and beautify our lives right here on earth.
