For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:21

I've been reading this verse all wrong. Like most people, when I've heard this verse I've read it backward: "where your heart is, there your treasure will be also." Even though this statement is true, that is not what this verse says. What it says is "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." There is a difference in those two statements.

Of course, our heart influences what we treasure. But Jesus is saying that our treasure also influences our heart. If we have accumulated vast amounts of money, own stocks and bonds in massive quantities, acquired lands and houses and cars and boats and other things, it's going to be hard to keep our hearts from loving all of those things. 

The principle is this: heart follows investment. If we've invested ourselves in material things, our heart will be materialistic. If we've invested ourselves in spiritual things, our heart will be spiritual. It's just that simple.

But here's the tough question: What do we do about it? 

Jesus gives us a clue in the other, lesser known passage about treasures and hearts:

"Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Luke 6:33-34

Father, give us faith to obey this passage so that nothing will prevent our hearts from being fully devoted to you.