Where is your treasure? (Isaiah 21)

 Isaiah 21:9b Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of her gods are smashed to the ground. 

Again we here of the fall of Babylon predicted by Isaiah. Remember, Babylon is a people of self-indulgence, pride, and greed. It is a good reminder that Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew 6 that our treasures are in heaven. We should not store or hoard things on earth where they can be destroyed. And we cannot serve God and mammon (wealth or property). 

After Hurricane Rita in 2005, I saw how quickly things became nothing. Our home in south Louisiana flooded, and we lost most things. My family weren’t hoarders, but it just brought to light seeing all of the household possessions on the front lawn broken and covered in mud that it only takes a moment for our earthly possessions to be destroyed. 

I reflect on that time now (and quite often as I decide if I really need to buy “that”, whatever that may be) to show that through all of our loss, we never lost sight of God. We were still at church the next Sunday, on lawn chairs as the floor had also been flooded in church, praising God because he is good. Those things were just that, things. Just as we take inventory of the things in our house for insurance purposes, we need take inventory of our heart. What we need to focus on is our internal house. Where do we keep Jesus? Does our heart need a good cleaning? Is our heart Babylon? Is it filled with wants and desires for more earthly things? We cannot have room for God in our hearts if it is full of possessions. 

Possessions do not account for only physical things. It also means pride, boasting, wanting of aspects of life that are not good in God’s eyes. There are so many cultural ideas around the world that are not showing how Jesus told us to live. They go against the teachings of the Bible. Any of those desires of wants take up space in our heart. If we allow these thoughts and ideas into our mind, they can start to fill our heart. We must not be like the people of Babylon who thought more about their current physical and emotional pleasure than what it meant to please God. We must seek the treasures of heaven.

Lord, thank you for all the blessings that you have given me. I pray for the continued desire to serve you above all else. I pray that I keep my heart clean and empty for you to fill. I turn to you in times of good and bad, because I know you are the only one who can truly fill my desires. Amen.