On our recent visit to South Africa we found that the average person’s concern with security had increased dramatically in the nine years since we lived there—ground floor windows still sport burglar bars but now almost every yard is surrounded by six to eight foot high walls or bars. Now you can usually only enter a property through a locked gate and most of the gates are hooked up to alarms which alert armed guards. When we drove around with our sons, car windows had to be closed and the doors locked at all times. When we parked at shopping centers the car was locked, an alarm was set, and an extra lock was placed on the steering wheel or gear shift.
In America, the presence of a large and highly trained police force makes unnecessary many of the precautions people have to take in other countries. The incidence of crime involving home invasion or the threat of bodily harm is much lower here than elsewhere. Yet we have other threats to our security such as identity theft and fraud via the internet. Phone-call scams are constantly being attempted and everyone has had e-mails from Nigerians fraudulently promising lavish rewards for helping transfer millions of dollars from Africa to America.
If you listen for even a short while to television newscasts, you’ll hear about other threats to your feeling of security from things such as dangerous drugs, identity theft, fraud schemes, health scares, climatic scares like hurricanes, and even societal scares such as the supposed rise in bigotry and other hate crimes. If it isn’t one area of insecurity, it’s another! Life just doesn’t always feel secure, does it!
Is it possible to talk of security in an insecure world? It is only possible when you realize that the feeling of insecurity is an inside job—it’s in your mind. A realistic view of the world from the Christian standpoint does not look upon it as a permanent dwelling-place. We look upon ourselves as “strangers and exiles on the earth” who are actually looking for a heavenly country where our God has prepared a heavenly city (Hebrews 11:13, 16). The apostle Paul told the Christians in Philippi that he wanted to remain on earth so that the church might benefit, but that it would be very much better to depart and be with Christ (Philippians 1:21-25). The ultimate security is thus to be found in heaven with Christ—but we can envision it from here on earth by means of Scripture.
Jesus points to the ultimate security when He says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21). Do you want to be sure you’re secure? Then ask yourself where your heart is.
Since things will always be subject to decay, destruction, and theft, it is obvious that the only treasures on which we can rely will be those of a spiritual nature. We can lay up treasures by assisting the poor (Matthew 6:1-4), through prayer (Matthew 6:5-6), by living without giving offence to others (Mark 9:43-48), by enduring persecution for the cause of Christ (Matthew 5:11-12), and by playing our part in teaching others the gospel (1 Corinthians 3:7-8).
An overall principle for laying up treasures in heaven is: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Colossians 3:23-24).
Mel