Day 2 of 6 — Glow in the Dark. About 3 minutes.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:21
A ship’s compass does not point at true north and never has. Put a steel hull around a magnetised needle and the iron of the ship pulls on it too, so the needle settles somewhere between the pole and the vessel’s own metal. The error shifts with every heading. So before a ship is trusted at sea she is swung, turned slowly through the whole circle while the error is read at each point and written on a card that stays by the wheel. Nobody pretends the second pull is not there. They measure it. A navigator who ignores it will steer a careful, confident course onto the rocks, and his compass will have been lying to him the whole way.
Paul picks a word for the Macedonians’ giving that is worth turning over slowly. Liberality, in verse 2, translates a word whose root means single, or without folds. Picture cloth laid out flat with nothing tucked inside it. Nothing kept back. Nothing hidden in a fold where it will not be looked for.
That is a description of a heart before it is ever a description of a gift. Jesus said the same thing from the other end. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Notice He does not say the heart drags the treasure along behind it. The treasure goes first and the heart follows it, which means a person can find out what he actually loves by looking at where his money already goes.
So run the test honestly this week. Not what you would like to care about. What you have genuinely funded over the last twelve months. The statement on your phone is a better instrument than your intentions are, and it flatters nobody. If it reads mostly you, that is not a reason for shame. It is information, and information is something you can act on. Giving gets complicated when a heart is divided and simple when it is not. Ask God this week to make yours single, and expect Him to begin with the fold you would rather He left alone.
Growth principle: Giving gets complicated when the heart is divided and simple when it is not.
Take it with you: Look at where your money actually went over the last year, and let that tell you the truth about your heart.
Pause and pray: Lord, I have kept things tucked away where I hoped You would not look. Make my heart single toward You. Start with the part I would rather defend. Amen.
From Sunday’s message: A Faith That Promises (2 Corinthians 8) · Sunday, October 18, 2026
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