Word Live: Solid Investment
Consider your day’s work – what lies ahead or what is already done. Prayerfully reflect on what or who motivates you to work hard.
Bible passage
Matthew 6:16–24
Fasting
16 ‘When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Treasures in heaven
19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 ‘No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
New International Version - UK (NIVUK) Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission.
Explore
Throughout his sermon, Jesus consistently points his followers to the intimacy they now enjoy with God. How do you respond to Jesus’ assertion that God sees everything you do (v 18)? Do we consider that whenever we give, pray and fast, out of love and honour for our heavenly Father, we are making an investment (v 18)?
No one wants to lose what they have worked hard for, whether that’s a wool coat damaged by moths or a whole day’s work not backed-up. The things we care about, the things we want to last, we protect. If you knew of an investment that gave a sure return, wouldn’t depreciate or vanish, wouldn’t you invest (v 20)? Surely our greatest heavenly treasure, which will not fade or perish, is our relationship with our Father God. How are we investing in that relationship?
If we want to make good investment choices for life, we will need to see clearly (v 22; see John 8:12) so that we do not waste time working for a master who is not eternal and for things that do not last (v 24).
Author
Penny Boshoff
Respond
Belonging to God means every waking moment belongs to him. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct your work (whether paid or unpaid) and leisure so that you are investing in heaven.
Deeper Bible study
Help us to recognise the idolatry of Mammon, especially when it comes gift-wrapped and disguised.
At the climax of this passage we find one of the key statements in the entire Sermon on the Mount. Jesus warns of the sheer impossibility of spiritual compromise in the attempt to serve both God and Mammon (v 24). This term is sometimes translated ‘money’ but it represents something broader: ‘the principle of materialism’ which is ‘in direct conflict with loyalty to God’.1 The relevance of this in our globalised world is obvious, but we have to ask how this statement relates to the practice of fasting as this is described in the opening verses of today’s reading.
Once again Jesus contrasts public displays of fasting, which occurred at particular seasons of the Jewish year, with the practice of disciples whose abstention from food was to be God-directed and therefore done in private. The spirituality of kingdom people is internal, a matter of the heart, and transcendent, in that it is directed ‘only to your Father … who sees what is done in secret’ (v 18). Here is the connection with the warning about Mammon: it is spirituality of the kind demanded by Christ which alone can sustain the disciples when faced with the overwhelming pressures of a materialistic world.
This results in an uncomfortable question for modern Christians – including this writer. ‘When you fast …’ (v 16) suggests that Jesus assumes that this practice will be a regular discipline of the spirituality of his new community. If fasting related to the ability to resist the lure of Mammon in the first century, what chance have we of living according to kingdom values if we think we can dispense with it in the twenty-first century?
Reread the last sentence above. How would you answer this question?
1 RT France, Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, IVP, 1985, p139
Author
David Smith
