Our Secret Paradise: Where Is Your Treasure?

What are you most passionate about? Are you most passionate about God?

That’s a hard question, because if we are honest, most of us will admit that we are not really as passionate about God as we ought to be. That means our time, talent, and treasures are being invested somewhere other than in our relationship with God.

In Matthew 6:21, Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The Greek word that is translated “treasure” literally means a space for storage. It is like a treasury or repository.

If you are going to be laying up your treasures on the earth, Jesus says—if your repository is an earthly one—then that is where your focus is going to be. But if your storage place is in heaven, then your focus will be on heavenly things.

Our passions and the greatest amount of our affection will be in the place where we have invested ourselves. The secret of passion for God and the secret of lasting passion in marriage is prioritizing investment. Where are our priorities?

None of us invest our lives in any one place. Our first treasury ought to be God. But if we’re married, our second storage place should be our spouse. Why? Because God created marriage to be the first human relationship in our lives. With the exception of our relationship with Jesus Christ, our marriage comes first.

If you are married, are you passionate about your marriage? If not, where is your passion?

Some might say their passion is in their children. That is a good thing, but your marriage and God are more important. Your children need godly parents. They are looking to you for an example of the correct way to live. They need to see you succeeding at marriage.

Others might say they are most passionate about their work, or about an activity like golf or exercise or shopping. But a marriage cannot work when it is not the priority. This is the first law of marriage, from Genesis 2:24: that a man will leave his father or mother and cleave unto his wife.

The word “leave” means reprioritizing your entire life in order for your marriage to work. Marriage will not be successful if it is third or fourth priority in your life. Your marriage should be second to God but first to every other relationship.

Your first passion should be for the things of God, but your second treasure, priority-wise, is your spouse. Third ought to be our kids…then our extended family, our church, our work, our interests, and all those other things.

When you get these in the wrong order—when you over-invest in one of them that ought to be further down the list—then your passions naturally move to the place where you have invested yourself. This is the law of sowing and reaping, as described in Galatians 6.

You reap what you sow. If you plant wheat, you’ll get a wheat stalk. You cannot sow all your seeds at work and then reap something at home. You cannot sow into your children and reap positive results in your marriage.

A successful marriage, like a successful spiritual life, is one in which we are giving ourselves—our talents and time and treasure—to the right things. God wants us to focus first on our relationship with him, and then on our marriage. If we get those two right, the rest of our treasury will fall into place.