What Captivates Your Heart?

What captivates your heart?

My observation is that we vastly overrate life on this planet and vastly underrate eternity. Jesus, constantly tried to refocus the vision of those he came into contact with to focus their lives on eternity, not simply this life.

In one of those passages he says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also…No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:19-24).

Here is the question: Are we convinced that God and His purposes are so important that our vision is to live a life that does everything possible to make his Son well known and His reputation great, knowing that as we do this we are storing up treasures in heaven. Or are we focused instead primarily on our own lives. Jesus is inviting us to give up our shabby little dreams for a grand and eternal vision of joining Him in His work and His purposes.

C.S. Lewis said it so well: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Are we too easily pleased? You know what captivates my heart? A world that is desperate for a Savior, for spiritual answers, for a friend, for a purpose to give their lives to. What captivates my heart is that half the people who have ever lived in human history are alive today. Seven billion, of whom at least five billion probably do not know Jesus. I will do everything I can to bring the good news to those who without it will spend eternity without Jesus. And I will give all that I can to see that happen.

What captivates my heart are the three and a quarter billion people on this planet who live on three dollars a day or less. Who do not have food, clothing, medical care or even clean water. I remember the words of God through the prophet Isaiah, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen; to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke. To set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

When we show people the love of Christ in tangible ways, they are open to hear about a relationship with Christ and I will do everything I can to be the hands and feet and help of Jesus to those who need it and I will give of my treasure to see that happen.

What captivates my heart are my neighbors, coworkers and those in my circle of influence who are lost and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Most of them are trying to find happiness in their stuff and it is not delivering. The good news is that the emptiness of that pursuit becomes an opportunity for us to share the news of an eternal father who loves them with an infinite love and longs to give them an eternal purpose.

What captivates our heart is where our treasures and focus go. Our hearts can only be captivated by one vision. A vision that focuses on this life or a vision that focuses on eternity and joining God in His purposes. One is settling for building mud pies in the slum while the other is like a holiday at sea.

A vision that focuses on this life asks how little I have to give so that I can keep the rest. A vision that focuses on eternity and joining God in His purposes asks how much I really need to live on so that I can give the rest.