For, like other general statements of the same sort, you can turn this saying round about, and take it the other way, and not only say, as the text says,' where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,' but, where your heart is, there is your treasure.' A man's real god is the thing that he counts best, and for which he works most earnestly, and which, as I said, he most longs to have, and trembles to think he will lose. That is his god, and his treasure, whatever his professions may be. Where your heart is, there is your treasure.
Now, of course, for the larger part of the lives of all of us, there are certain lines laid down by our circumstances, our trades, our various duties, on which the train of our thoughts and efforts must run. But the question is, When I am set free from the constraint of my daily avocations and pressing duties, and am at liberty to go as I like, where do I go? When the weight is taken off the sapling in the nursery garden, which has been hung on it to turn it into a weeping-tree, its elastic stem springs to the erect position. Where do I spring to when the weights are taken off? The mother bird will hover over her nest. Where her treasure is, there is her maternal instinct. The needle follows the drawing of the pole-star; the sunflower turns to the sun. Being let go, they went to their own company.' Where do you go? The reins laid upon the horse's neck, it will trot straight home to its stable; the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib,' and our instincts are not less sure than theirs. You go home' when you are left to yourselves; where do you go?
We call ourselves Christians. If our treasure is in Christ, our hearts will turn to Him. And what does that mean? Hearts,' as I said, mean thoughts. Now, can you and I say, In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul'? Does there come stealing into my mind often and often the blessed contemplation of my wealth in Jesus Christ? The river of thought brings down, in its continual flow, much mire and sand. Does it bring any gold? Do I think about Christ, and find it to be my refreshment to do so? An old mystic said, If I can tell how often I have thought of God to-day, I have not thought of Him often enough.' Where your treasure is, there will your thoughts be also.'
The heart means love. Where do my affections turn when I am set free? The heart means the will. Is my will all saturated with, and so made pliant by, the will and commandment of Jesus Christ? If He is my treasure, then thoughts, affection, obedience will all turn to Him, and the current of my being, whatever may be the surface-ripple--ay, or the surface-storm--will be ever sliding surely, though it may be silently, towards Himself. All! brethren, if we would be honest with ourselves and look into this mirror, we should have cause to be ashamed, some of us, of our very profession of being Christians, and all of us to feel that we have far too much heaped up for ourselves other treasures and forgotten our true wealth, and we should all have to pray, Unite my heart to fear Thy name.' The Assyrians had a superstition that a demon, if he saw his own reflection in a mirror, would fly. I think if some of us professing Christians saw ourselves, as the looking glass of my text might give us to see ourselves, we should shudderingly depart from that self, and seek to have a better self formed within us. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'
