Treasuring Your Treasure
Joel Van Hoogen
Summer Dreaming
A dream came to me one night not long ago or, if you will, a thought that mingled into my dreams (to be clear at the outset, I’m making no claim of special revelation). As I slept, a small portion of what seemed to be Scripture kept running through my mind. “Treasure for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Then in my slumber, I began to expound this short phrase for myself. I reasoned that these treasures must be things I have collected and valued on earth. I considered that this command revealed the possibility of tucking away those treasures, not in heaven but into the earth. Following this, I began to contemplate what these treasures would be. It seemed to me that these could be anything and everything that might be considered a good thing in this earthly existence. In other words, they would be good things that anyone might collect. With this thought, I began, in my dream, to make a list of things one might treasure.
This treasure had to include memories of family, pets, and of satisfying experiences. This is the value of hard work and hard play, engagements with beauty and the taste of good food. Treasured things would also include adventures, achievements, and purposeful activities. Of course, not missing from this list is the love of home, of children and spouses. Oddly enough, the thought of material wealth never occurred to me as a thing to put in my “things to be treasured list.” Although, in the full light of day I have often counted up material treasures, these did not suggest themselves to me as I slept.
Sleeping on, I began a review of treasures acquired throughout my life. These came to me as scenes. From my childhood, I viewed multiple moments enjoying my parents, siblings, and friends. I saw myself on a morning motorcycle ride through cultivated fields in India on the way to visit a village with the message of the gospel. I looked into an array of exotic homes throughout the world where I was sitting dialoguing the good news of Jesus Christ with its inhabitants. Next, I was looking into the eyes of my babies as they were put into my hands for the first time. I viewed their faces as they grew and developed around our family table. Then I found myself gazing into the eyes of my wife as we held and loved each other. I walked with her down neighborhood sidewalks, along shorelines, and into churches. It was a quick but sharp mental journey surveying but a small portion of the treasures that were mine.
Then the questions came to me, “How do these treasures, gathered on earth, get stored up in heaven?” and, conversely, “How do they get deposited into the earth?” And then...I awoke.
Waking Reflections
With the morning, I completely forgot my thoughts from the preceding night. But the following night, as I was again drifting off to sleep, the same phrase— “Treasure for yourselves treasures in heaven”—popped into my head and with it, all my former exposition. I was not so far into sleep this time, and so I woke up and made my way to my study. There I turned in my Bible to Matthew 6:20 and found the words, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...” (NKJV). The fuller context confirmed something of the expositions of my slumber. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19–21). At my desk on this second night, I recalled in great detail the list I had created. And though this treasure may easily be understood to be the material acquisitions that we make in our lives, and with it a call to spend that resource on kingdom initiatives, it certainly does not rule out the acquisitions of the sort on my list.
That said, the question remaining was, “how do we lay up treasures in heaven as opposed to laying them up in the earth?”
A Threefold Answer
A threefold answer came to mind. We lay up treasures in heaven by how we receive them, how we embrace them, and to what end we invest them. If we receive them as pleasures to be consumed for our own satisfaction, embrace them as the source of our significance, and invest them for greater returns on our own self-interest, then we bury them in the earth. In doing so, we prove ourselves to be the praying hedonists James describes: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (Jas 4:3). Live this way, and when your earthly life comes to an end, you will find yourself clinging to treasures you cannot keep.
“If we receive them as pleasures to be consumed for our own satisfaction, embrace them as the source of our significance, and invest them for greater returns on our own self-interest, then we bury them in the earth.”
But if we receive these things as gifts to be celebrated and faithfully stewarded for God's glory; if we embrace them as blessings that lift our hearts to God, the Giver of every good and perfect gift; and if we invest them as resources for calling others to know and delight in our good God, then those treasures have been rightly treasured. They have not been buried in the earth, but laid up in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
A Final Thought
Back in bed, I drifted off to sleep while once again reviewing the people, places, and experiences that had gathered throughout my life—all of them good, all of them gifts from God. I delighted anew in the scenes that had come to me the night before. In my dream, it was as though I held each treasured memory in my hands, turning it over with quiet wonder. Then, one by one, each scene was transformed into a precious jewel and fell into an open chest, until it overflowed with treasure.
A final thought came to me on the morning after that second night of blissful sleep. Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” The Bridegroom is preparing our home in heaven and will one day return to bring His bride into that eternal dwelling. Yet, in His grace, He has not chosen to furnish it all Himself. He invites us to bring with us the treasures fashioned from His blessings in this life, so that they may adorn our everlasting home. What a loving command! If we treasure our treasures as God intends, then when the day comes to depart from this world, we will have little to leave behind but sorrow, pain, and tears.
“In His grace, He has not chosen to furnish it all Himself. He invites us to bring with us the treasures fashioned from His blessings in this life, so that they may adorn our everlasting home. What a loving command!”
Even those, however, need not be lost. If our sorrows are received from the wise hand of God, laid before His throne for His glory, and entrusted to the service of His kingdom, they too will be transformed into precious treasures. On that day, every gift rightly treasured—and every sorrow faithfully surrendered—will become part of the joy we shall enjoy with Him forever.