Resurrection IV: Treasures in Heaven ...

Friday, April 25, 2014. What is important to me? Where is my heart? When we talked about the resurrection, on key point is that there is new life, that there is a new creation in the risen Jesus. We are trying to describe what this new creation looks like, and what its connection is to us, to each of us personally …

Treasures and Value …

What is in the center of our life? Is it things which are vain? Is it things which become rusty and then fall into pieces? In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) Jesus talks about the treasures which we should build:

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Wow - treasures in heaven. Do we know what these treasures are made of? What ARE the treasures? Usually, we try to earn our living. We try to have fun. We try to find a partner, perhaps we want or have kids. We try to live in some nice flat or house. We try to have a nice car. We try to live with some treasures within this world. But what about treasures in heaven?

There are treasures in and for heaven, which we can live in the middle of this world. One of such treasures is truth. We can be truthful to ourselves and towards others. Truth means that we learn to see what is in us, what are our motives, what are our thoughts, our emotions, our targets. Humans are complex beings, - truth of the heart and the mind might be not that easy to see and to live! But truth is one of the treasures which is for heaven.

Multitude of Treasures …

Another treasure in and for heaven is mercy. It means that we are touched by the difficulties of some other person, and that we act to help. Mercy has a component to see what is there, a part of it is perception. It has a component of emotion and of openness, since if we are focussed on other goals, mercy will not grow in our heart and our mind. Mercy includes the ability to see and accept the boundaries which some person has - which might not easy to be overcome. And then, there is the component of action. Mercy will help, it will act, it will not remain silent!

There is the treasure of faithfulness. It means that we keep what we have said we would keep. It means that we keep and develop the relationships which we have started. In a marriage, it means that we stay in it, that we do not break out and that we keep the relationship to the partner alive and full of love, as in the beginning. Faithfulness is something which is deeply within our relationships. It determins how we treat ourselves and others, humans and God himself.

There is much more to say about the treasures which are for heaven. There are many more, for today we could just touch three of them. And it is highly exciting to search these treasures, to try them out, to live with them, to play with them, to let them become a part of our life! We will talk more about heaven - in the next days and weeks … (Roland Potthast) ... more texts