"WHERE THY TREASURE IS, THERE WILL BE ALSO THY HEART"

“WHERE THY TREASURE IS, THERE WILL BE ALSO THY HEART”

I have been struck lately, that, as far as I can judge, saints are not aware how much they lose by being diverted from the place where Christ is. One is very ready to say that Christ is one’s treasure, but there is a positive proof that it is so, viz., that our heart is in the place where He is.

I desire to call attention to the importance of the place. It is not that the christian has no duties or engagements here, but when he is attracted by the natural beauties here his heart is diverted from Christ’s place. One slowly learns this. If we look at ourselves historically, we are in the place where He is not, where He came to His own and His own refused Him. Now we all know that He is gone to another place, and while many a heart is fixed in turning to Him there, there is often great loss because it is attracted by some of the things in this present scene.

I see it is of great importance to get definitely before you that if your heart is much taken up with an object, the heart does not content itself with its affection merely, but it desires to be in the place where its object is. Ruth says, “Intreat me not to leave thee”. (Ruth 1: 16) We are in the place where Christ is not, and He who is our life is not here, and the more we realise that He is our life the more we enjoy Him when drawn to Him where He is. Hence, practically, this was the teaching of the wilderness. Nothing was to be found ^[p. 265] here to satisfy the heart, and thus the end of the wilderness is Jordan. You have accepted it as a privilege to be dead with Him to everything here - a blessed day for the heart because then it travels to the place where its treasure is. “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth”. (Colossians 3: 1,2) And now, in the sphere of His life, you know Him as Head, but I would that everyone would practically exercise himself as to this.

Anyone who truly judges himself when he is interested with fields or flowers must feel that he has been diverted from the place where his treasure is. If he has a garden he has to attend to it, but attention is a very different thing from attraction. One is a duty, but the other is the drawing away of the heart. Surely it is plain to everyone that if we were more occupied with the place where Christ is, we should be more weaned from the influence of present things. I have long insisted on heaven being our place, but I find now that you must get attraction there, and if He be your treasure, your heart will be there also. One cannot help remarking that as a rule those we meet with speak of something nice and to be admired here, instead of being able to refer to something where He is, as if their interests were here and not there.

I need hardly add more, but one thing in conclusion I must press, that union with Christ is realised only as you are led by the Spirit to Him where He is, and also that growth depends on your looking on the things that are not seen. Our inward man is renewed day by day, while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.

Scarborough,