GodSprings - 21, May, 2017

Whose Cow Dies – Mine or God's?

“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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Matthew 6:19-24

Once there was a farmer who had few cows. One day he joyfully ran into his kitchen and announced to his wife with a big smile on his face that their finest cow had just given birth to twins, one brown and one white. He said, “I think I should dedicate one of these cows to the Lord. We’ll bring them up together and when they are at a marketable age we’ll sell them and we’ll keep the proceeds from one and we’ll give the proceeds from the other to the Lord.” His wife went right to the issue as wives  are prone to do and said, “Which is the Lord’s cow? The white one or the brown one? He replied, well there’s no need to worry about that dear, or to decide that now since we’ll raise them together.”

Some months later he entered the kitchen looking sad. His wife seeing him gloomy  asked the reason, to which he replied, “I have bad news. The Lord’s cow died?

In most of the cases it’s always God’s cow that dies. Why is it so? Tim Keller says, “The pull of sin that is in us drags us down to the earth, it is like a magnet, it is like a gravity, and we want to be rich towards self and poor toward God.”

Jesus talks about money five times more than He talks about any other subject in the Bible. It might be because Jesus too knew that we are a little hard of hearing when it comes to money matters. Jesus talks about money in Matthew for 109 times, in Luke for 94 times, in John for 88 times and in Mark for 57 times.

In the read passage Jesus provides three alternatives for us to handle our luxuries. There are two treasuries (treasure on earth – treasure in heaven), two visions (healthy eye – bad eye) and two masters (Money – God). We have to make a choice.

The Greek word for treasury is thēsaurizete from which we get the word thesaurus. The word here means treasure not up treasures or in simpler terms don’t stockpile.

Jesus is talking not about the necessities but about luxury. Jesus is not talking about what we have rather our attitude toward what we have. The things that we possess can become the idols of our lives. And Jesus is telling us, “Don’t pile up stuff.”

Of all the three choices how can we have the eternal one (treasure in heaven, healthy eye and God as master)? Absolute focus on God and his word will make us accomplish. Like David in Psalm 16 may we also be able to say, "I have set the Lord always before me."

Let us pray – Dear Lord, help us to learn to give, for how else can we respond to one who has given all for us? Help us not to go after piling up treasures on earth but to lay up treasure in heaven.