Field Notes is your daily 5-minute briefing designed to take Sunday's truth and put it to work Monday through Friday. Grab your gear and get ready for a daily rundown, challenge, and action step that will equip you to live intentionally for the Kingdom.
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Your calendar and your bank statement are telling a story about what you worship. If that feels intense, good, because Jesus is clear in Matthew 6:19-20: treasures on earth rust, break, and disappear, but treasures in heaven last. We take that truth and bring it down to street level with a short, practical devotion that challenges the way the American dream quietly shapes our choices and our definition of “success.”
We talk honestly about a dangerous idea that creeps into church life: using the Bible as a self-help manual to get everything we desire. Yes, Scripture offers wisdom for finances, parenting, marriage, and work, but its primary focus is not polishing a better version of us. The deeper goal is knowing and being known by the Creator God. When we chase comfort, status, and stuff as our security, we end up serving two masters, and we become anxious and fragile because our identity depends on things we can lose.
Then we get specific with a simple action step for Christian stewardship and spiritual growth: review the last 30 days of your time and money, list your top three categories for each, and ask whether they point toward treasures on earth or treasures in heaven. Pick one adjustment this week to redirect your resources toward the kingdom of God. If you lost your job, title, savings, or prized possession tomorrow, what would still be true about you?
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Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to the Field Brief from Mission Scent. This is our five-day devo taking last week's sermon and breaking it up into smaller pieces so that we can take one step at a time.
Now, today we are going to get started with treasures that don't float. And our scripture focus is Matthew 6, verses 19 and 20 that says this do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
See there's this dangerous idea that is crept into the church. Well, for starters, the problem is you can't have a rainbow without having rain. Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. And although I'm not saying that there aren't practical things throughout all of Scripture that, yes, if you apply, will help your life. There are things about being financially responsible. There are things about how to raise children, there are things on how to treat your spouse, how to be as an employer, how to be as an employee. Yes, there are all sorts of those kind of things, but the Bible's primary focus is not self-help. It's not just, hey, if you do these 15 things, you can have the best version of you. That would be a very, very self-centered way to look at scripture. And unfortunately, that is what a lot of us do. We sit here and go, there's a secret in here that I can get all of the things I desire without understanding that the Bible's primary point is to give you what your heart's deepest desire is, and that is to know and be known by the Creator God. That is the whole point of the Bible. It was God going here is everything you need to know about me. But too often, we as human beings, we find ourselves chasing the American dream over what the Bible is saying. See, the world tells us that happiness is found in stacking up toys and treasures here. That the more toys we have, the better our life will be. But eventually,
listen, everything we build here is going to break down. Eventually, the expensive toys break, the motors fail, the boats just don't float. See, we cannot serve two masters. We will love one and hate the other. And if all of our energy, anxiety, and effort are being poured into building up our worldly bank accounts, our status, our reputation, then we are chasing a kingdom that is ultimately destined for the junkyard. Think about your most prized possession. Do you know what your great-grandparents were? See, things that we acquire here are all going to end up one or two places. The landfill or the garage sale. That's it. See, these things are temporary, and when our value is tied to our performance, how well our job is going, how much money we're making, or how successful our kids are, we become incredibly weak and vulnerable. True strength is found when we realize that all of our earthly treasures are temporary and it drives us to find our total dependence and value in Christ and Christ alone. So where is your actual security coming from right now? If you lost your most prized possession, if you lost your job, your title, your family, your savings account, would your identity crumble? See, it's easy to say we trust God when everything's going good. However, what about when the things we've built for our comfort start to rust and fail?
So our action step today is this take inventory of your time and your money over the last 30 days. What did you spend your time doing? What did you spend your money on? Write down the top three things you spent the most time and money on. Now, did that does that list point to building treasures here on earth or treasures in heaven? And then today make one adjustment this week to redirect your resources towards the kingdom of heaven.
