There is the well-known parable about the rich man who asked Jesus how he could enter Heaven. In Matthew 19:21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” And, as the parable tells us, the rich man walked away disappointed.

It is not as though the rich man wasn’t truly interested in following Jesus. What we can say about the rich man is that he was more committed to his riches – whatever they may have been – but that his heart wasn’t in it. I looked up that phrase online and here’s what the meaning of “not having your heart in it” means: someone does not give all their energy, interest, and enthusiasm to something.

When we refer to someone who doesn’t have his or her heart in something, it’s someone who lacks effort, someone who reluctantly does a task but isn’t putting full effort into it.

The rich man was not necessarily a bad man and we don’t know exactly what his riches were – money, jewels, real estate, livestock, or all of the above – what we do know is that Jesus told the rich man exactly what the rich man needed to do to enter Heaven. And the rich man walked away because his heart wasn’t into what Jesus asked him to do.

What a foolish man the rich man was, right?

Let’s be real, if Jesus were to tell us to follow him and all we had to do was walk away from our house, our bank accounts, our credit cards, our cars, our flatscreen televisions, our computers, and our smartphones, we’d drop them in a heartbeat that moment and follow Jesus wherever He told us to go? Right?

Puts a different light on the rich man, doesn’t it? Our riches, our treasures, are not exclusively based upon monetary worth but instead what we put our heart into – our energy, interest, and enthusiasm. Try to take away a teen or young adult’s smartphone and you have a fight on your hands. Tell your husband he needs to give up poker night/fantasy football league/boy’s night or tell your wife she needs to forego her wine club with her girlfriends and the response you get may not be a loving one.

Make no mistake, none of these things are bad, are wrong, or are working against Christ. We are meant to enjoy life and the things God has blessed us with; however, when these things come before God, distract us from God, or have more of our heart than God, well, that’s a Kingdom-sized problem.

Though we do not endorse the Laws of Attraction, one phrase that is common to their philosophy is that what you focus on multiplies and then takes on a life of its own. If all you’re focused on is getting more stuff, you’ll get more stuff (you may not be any happier but you’ll have more stuff). If we modify that statement to say, “What you put your heart in multiplies” and we apply that to our relationship with Jesus then might we not see a deeper relationship with Him? More enthusiastic disciple making? An energy directed at lifting up others? Taking time for our “riches” in our spare time rather than fitting in Jesus during our spare time?

Remember, The Enemy doesn’t distract us with the things we don’t like. He distracts us with the “candy” in our lives not the “vegetables”. We make it very clear to The Enemy as much as we do to the Lord where our hearts lie and what distracts us from what God wants us to do. And then The Enemy just reminds us we can keep having all the candy we want.

What are you putting your heart into and what don’t you have your heart in?

It is very easy for today’s Christian to read the accounts in the Bible, roll our eyes over the stupidity of the people in the Bible, and think how we would never be that foolish. Adam and Eve? Why if God told me not to do something, I wouldn’t do that. Build a Golden Calf idol? We wouldn’t do that. If Jesus asked us to drop everything this minute and walk away from our lives as we know them, we wouldn’t hesitate. If we were asked to deny knowing Jesus at the risk of our own lives or the lives of our family, we wouldn’t do that. Right?

We benefit from knowing how the stories end for these people that we – in Biblical hindsight – and so we can claim spiritual superiority thinking we’d never be so foolish. However, we don’t know how our personal story, our personal walk results in any given situation so we can – and do – make the same mistakes as those “stupid” people in the Bible. We just have fancier stuff.

Now, having said all of this, is not to tell you how foolish you are or to tell you you’re a failure as a Christian or that you should take a vow of poverty and give up all your stuff. What I am saying is that The Enemy’s methods haven’t changed since The Fall. He finds our vulnerabilities, he exploits them, and then we blind ourselves as to how the “candy” in our lives distracts us from what God is calling us to do. And The Enemy laughs.

Tony and I can tell you from personal experience that when you focus on what God asks you to do what multiplies is incredible. We have experienced this with Freedom Lake. What started as two believers seeking God’s will for our lives has – in roughly four years – led to an entirely different kind of discipleship and to seeing God work in the hearts of people who have brought God’s calling to a reality. 

The path has not been easy nor without its challenges (like The Enemy trying to discourage us at every turn) but we have stayed faithful, we have kept our hearts in it, and have stayed on guard to make sure that we are doing His will and not our own.

God has blessed us throughout this journey. He has worked in the hearts of more people than we can count – but who we know we can count on – who have come alongside us in any number of ways because they see God at work through us. As we like to say: God’s fingerprints are all over Freedom Lake because everything that is happening is God’s doing, Tony and I are merely the servants He has asked to set aside their “stuff” and follow Him.

And we did. We keep our hearts focused on God and keep Him at the center of our lives.

Now, God may not be asking you to have a Freedom Lake-like ministry but He is calling you to a greater relationship with Him and to serve Him by being His hands and feet in sharing the gospel, in raising up people around you, in equipping others, in be part of building God’s Kingdom. Stop and think about that for a moment. God asks us to build His Kingdom. The One Who Made All That Is wants us to build His Kingdom.

That fact alone is worth us putting our hearts into.

As you go about your lives this week, be purposeful about how The Enemy is using your stuff, your hobbies, your interests to distract you from God. We lovingly challenge you to “shave off” time each day and invest that time in reading Scripture, praying, and doing some form of discipleship with the people in your circle of influence. As you do this week after week, I promise you that you will experience God in a whole new way and in a way that will have an Eternal impact.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:21