“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

It is my belief that the Body of Christ has been distracted for many years with stuff – almost every message, every prayer, every praise and every testimony has been about getting stuff. Our praise and worship should not be motivated by the stuff we want. We say, “When praises go up, blessings come down.” We quote Psalm 37:4, “If you delight yourself in the Lord, He’ll give you the desires of your heart,” because we are thinking about the stuff we want. Our hearts desire riches and we pray for lavish lifestyles of more and bigger stuff. We declare Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,” and then we become discontent and depressed when we do not get what we want when we want it. We question God’s love because we have not gotten the stuff we want. We sometimes lash out at others that do have because we have not gotten ours, and jealousy and strife enter into our hearts.

The danger in desiring after stuff is it is never enough. The more stuff we get, the more stuff we want. We want stuff more than we want the presence of God. We only seek Him for stuff and God is saying to us, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Isaiah 29:13. He knows we are just coming to Him just to get our stuff.

In Colossians 3:2 we are instructed to, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” I’m sure we can agree that stuff is earthly. In contrast, we have more stuff, but we are dying with the stuff. Sickness and disease is running rampant in the Body of Christ. We have more stuff, but the enemy is coming into our homes destroying our marriages and tearing our families apart. We have more stuff, but the enemy is destroying our neighborhoods and killing our children in the streets. We are getting more stuff, but we have no power. We have no power because we are preoccupied with accumulating stuff. We have set our hearts on earthly things and not things above – spiritual things. Colossians 3:1 instructs us to, “Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6:25-31 directs us not to worry about our lives, or what we will eat or drink, or what we are going to wear. He tells us that our Father knows that we need these things. In verse 32, Jesus said, “For the pagans run after all those things.” The Message translation reads, “People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works.” Therefore, we have been acting like pagans – people who do not know God – instead of children of the Most High God who know their Father will take care of them. Psalm 34:10 reads, “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

The Word instructs us to, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33. The Message translation reads, “What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.” We clearly have gotten our priorities out of order and have been preoccupied with getting, when our loving Father has already assured us that we will not lack anything.

 God is simply calling for His people to return to Him with our whole hearts – seek Him not stuff; return to a pure worship where our only motive is to glorify Him; return to seeking His way of doing things; return to seeking His agenda for His kingdom. Jeremiah 29:12-13, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Whatever you value most will direct your heart. The Giver is far greater than the gift.