What did you love about 2024?
What are you going to love in 2025?
What did you love about the last year?
A quick scroll through your photos might recall the memories made and the highlights of the year.
What are you going to love in 2025?
Perhaps you already have a few things you are anticipating. Still, It’s challenging to know what exactly we are going to love next year.
That’s why Jesus wants you to look at your budget carefully.
The Lord knows that your money flows from your heart toward what you love. Your spending is an accurate picture of what you love.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:21
Your budget is an accurate picture of what you plan to love!
Our heart is the center of our hopes and desires–what we treasure or value. That’s why our hearts and our money go together. It is all about our value system.
Jesus warns us that material wealth and possessions make a powerful pull on our hearts because the flesh wants to value rewards here and now.
The flesh fights our Christian confession that this world is not our home. The flesh seeks to mute the hope of the coming Kingdom.
That’s why we need to listen to our Lord as we plan for another year. Our spending tells us a lot about our discipleship. We can say we live for eternity, but our budgets tell us what (and when) we are living for.
The Lord Jesus calls us to examine where we place our money because that is where we are placing our hearts. He loves us and wants us to make a good investment!
The choice is clear to our Lord– earthly pleasures that fade away or eternal investments that last forever.
What do you plan to love in 2025? It’s worth asking yourself a few questions in reflection:
Where is most of your treasure? Is that where your heart is?
When you give, does that frighten you or excite you? Why?
Look at your bank statement and your credit card statements. Specifically, where does most of your money go? Are those your priorities?
Talk to God about these ideas. We all face fears–pray for a renewed heart that tells treasure what to do, not more treasure that tells your heart what to do.
Talk to fellow believers about the challenges and opportunities you see in following the Lord’s instructions in Matthew 6:19–24.
Each person’s stewardship may look slightly different, but we can all encourage each other to invest eternally in a world that is clamoring to keep hearts!
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:19–24