What is the Object of our Faith?

Matthew 6:19-24

19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

For me personally, this post has very little to do with material possessions although the possibility of that application is certainly there. It has everything to do with what or whom we put our faith and hope in. I don't think I realized how much I put my faith, for example, in people, until I went through difficulties where I felt the need to cash in on that "faith" and it didn't meet my expectations. In fact, I was downright disappointed and terribly discouraged! It is really easy to believe in something or someone until it or they are tested. Maybe the object of faith could be a job, your income, your family, a marriage, an institution, a particular system, your health, your talents, your friends, our government or simply your religion. Perhaps you can, on some level, relate to what I am saying. It seems often times we don't realize how misguided we are until those moments or circumstances arrive in which we expect to "cash" the check we think is due us. Nothing and no one should bear that responsibility and privilege except for our Creator Himself. And He does, in a heartbeat, I can testify of this. We often do not realize how much and in how many ways we trust the temporal over the eternal. We have expectations of the temporal to behave in a manner that is eternal, permanent and or fixed. That is simply unreasonable and quite honestly a fantasy at best.

The Greek word for Treasure is thēsauros. This word means:

1) the place in which good and precious things are collected and laid up

a) a casket, coffer, or other receptacle, in which valuables are kept

b) a treasury

c) storehouse, repository, magazine

The thing that caught my eye about the Greek meaning of the word for treasure was the word "casket". It brought to mind death for obvious reasons. I suppose our bodies are treasures or should be treated as such, but YHVH is the El of the living and not the dead. (Luke 20:38) A casket hardly seems like a fitting place to store our treasures! Without getting too morbid, the things stored in a casket will eventually just be worm food. Grave robbers, in some areas of the world, might very well steal the rest. The elements, moisture, heat etc. will finish the job. So much of what we consider "valuable" and what we put our hope in will pass away, because everything except our Creator has an expiration date or a "fail" point. This is just the truth, like it or not. I have tended to not like it, but I see the wisdom in this fact as time goes by.

Ecclesiates 1:1-4 The words of Kohelet the son of David, king in Yerushalayim: 2 Pointless! Pointless! - says Kohelet -Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters! 3 What does a person gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? 4 Generations come, generations go, but the earth remains forever.

Quite honestly the words of Ecclesiates used to really bum me out. The book of Revelation did the same when I first became a believer. Although I attested to having faith in the Messiah and made the decision to follow Him, in certain areas of my life, I continued to attempt to maintain an iron grip on the things of the world. I had little understanding of how liberating it is to come to the realization that time and energy spent on "expecting" things in this world to work, function and satisfy is a "meaningless" pursuit of time and energy. We live in a world that is fallen and corrupt and you would have to be delusional to believe differently. That is a little hard I know, but it was said to me in love and I deliver it with the same heart. Those very same books of the Word now inspire me and give me hope. His Word, all of it, is a love letter from my Creator, meant to draw me closer to Him and help me to know Him in a deeper and more intimate way.

There is something, it seems, in all of us that desires to place our faith and hope in some of the oddest places, rather than where it belongs. Why is that? We seemed to be wired to "misfire" and by doing so set ourselves up for a fall. When you really begin to look at it, it's so very backwards. Brad Scott says "YHVH creates, man can only restore". There is so much truth in that statement. Believing anything else is simply pride and most of us know where that leads. There is nothing on this earth that mankind has created, only materials that he restores or maintains. So it was in the beginning, so it is now, nothing has changed. Mankind was created, yet has the privledge of eternal life with the Creator if he chooses to. Mankind was never created to be an object of our "faith", nor was anything else on the earth that has been created.

All of our needs, whatever they are, can only be met by our Father. He holds your next breath. He is already in your tomorrow. He wants to meet all of your needs. He waits to. He offers to. He isn't going anywhere. Where are we? What is the object or objects of our faith, really? This is a really good question to continually ask ourselves.

It is so easy to misplace......our treasure.