Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.    --Luke 12:33-34

The Heart of a Believer

Time and again, Jesus overturns the overturns conventional wisdom of the world, and he beckons his followers to join him in the new reality of the Kingdom of God.

Notice how Jesus does it again in the above excerpt from this Sunday's Gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary.

As pastors and church leaders, we continually invite people to look deep into their heart, to commit to God with all their being. We urge them to come to church in order to bring their hearts closer to God. And then we hope (expect?) that they will express their love for God with generosity for the church and for the needy people of God.

But Jesus turns things around. Look first at where the treasure is. When you find that, you'll find the heart. It's a sobering divining rod to find the heart of a follower of Jesus. It follows Luke's emphasis that following Jesus and entering the Kingdom of God means embracing a different kind of economics. Sell what you have, share your wealth, look with mercy on those who have less.

And when we see where your treasure really is, we know where your heart really is, too. 

Rob Blezard, editor and webmaster
Reprint rights gladly given for nonprofit congregational use. Just include this notice: "Copyright (c) 2007, The Rev. Robert Blezard, www.stewardshipoflife.org. Used by permission."

New This Week:

Stewardship Nuggets for Families and Children
Raising children in the faith begins at home, and this handy resource will help you to do just that week after week. Using a scripture as guide, these nuggets suggest family activities and discussion questions that will help children live stewardship. Good stuff! Click here for “Stewardship Nuggets for Families and Children, from the United Methodist Church’s Center for Christian Stewardship.


Prescription for a Life of Joy -
"We make all kinds of bargains with God to get what we want, but God has already given much more than we can ever repay. And God continues to give us good things as if our bank account were not already overdrawn." Click here for “Prescription for a Life of Joy,” an archive essay from The Rev. Dana Reardon, our weekly columnist. Click here to read archived essays.

A lot of junk
An auction of the estate of an ordinary working couple provides telling insight into the lives of the people who left behind their worldly possessions. What will it all mean, in the end, the things we collect? “Our modest homes contain hundreds of stewardship lessons,” the writer says. Click here for “A lot of junk,” from The Christian Century.