Devoted to Him Who Is Devoted to Us

Do you remember the crush you had in high school on someone who didn’t like you back in quite the same way? The girl I liked fancied a few guys and eventually chose one, but I was not even on her list. Unrequited love; teenage heartbreak. “Let’s just be friends.” (Sigh.) “OK.” (By the way, golf is like this, too, for some of us—though we love it, it merely likes us in return. But let’s not digress.)

Jesus taught the gathered crowd, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”¹ It was a warning to choose wisely that in which we invest ourselves and place our affections: we can “store up for [ourselves] treasures on earth . . . [or] treasures in heaven.”² And just to be clear, Jesus added, “You cannot serve both God and money”³—we must choose the object of our devotion. Sometimes, like the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable⁴, we prefer the Father’s blessings over the Father himself, for the allure of self-indulgence can be as overpowering as it is deceitful. God or things, things or God—which will we love, and which will we use?

But as to God’s devotion to us, there is no dilemma, there is no equivocating. Speaking through His prophet Joel to those who oppressed Israel, God declared the worth of His admittedly rebellious people: “For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem . . . ”⁵ Did you catch it? God’s people are His silver and gold. We are His finest treasures. He has chosen us as His own, and where His treasure is, there His heart will be also—with us.

Then may His steadfast love for us draw us in an unshakable love for Him, that He would be our finest treasure, as well. If we have esteemed earthly riches over the richness of God, or if we have tried impossibly to “serve both,” then let this be the turning point at which we redirect our devotion entirely to Him who is completely devoted to us. Like the prodigal son who “came to his senses”⁶ and returned home, we will discover our Father’s love for us to be far richer—and far more satisfying—than any worldly wealth without Him.

Father, grant me wisdom to seek You and only You. Your blessings will be there as You choose—I know this full well, for such is Your character and Your devotion toward Your people. In Christ I pray. Amen.

¹ Matthew 6:21
² Matthew 6:19-20
³ Matthew 6:24
⁴ See the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.
⁵ Joel 3:5-6
⁶ Luke 15:17