Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Making a Bad Investment? | The Gospels | Matthew 6:19–24

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

What are you betting your life on? Where are you storing your treasure? And what does your treasure reveal about your heart? In today’s episode, Jeff explores how Matthew 6:19–24 exposes the fragile promises of earthly treasure, showing us why Jesus is worth surrendering our treasure, desires, and allegiance to. Want to become a more consistent Bible reader? Download our free Ten Minute Bible Guide and start building a simple, sustainable habit of meeting with God through his word. Grab your guide here. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Matthew 6:19–24

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. The difference between a wise investment and a foolish investment is immense. If things go well, that initial cost of investing can pale in comparison to the abundance of future growth. But if things don't go well, that initial investment of your treasure is meaningless, compared to the attrition of losses. The chasm between good and bad outcomes is always clear in retrospect.

But how do you know if you're investing your treasure in future abundance or future attrition in any given moment? Consider this example from history. Here's the profile of a company that would love to have your investment dollars. Here's some key stats. When it comes to people,

this organization has a massive footprint of over 20,000 employees. Concerning profits, this prospective company to invest in claimed over $100 billion in revenue. Not too shabby. And matters related to the press. This company was named America's most innovative company by Fortune magazine six years in a row. And in terms of prudence, this organization has a well-outlined code of ethics to ensure long-term health and honesty.

I mean, when you look at all these statistics, this seems like a slam dunk for future abundance. You'd be a fool to pass on this opportunity. That is, until you realize that this organization, yearning for the allegiance of your investments, is none other than Enron. Back in 2001, 25 years ago, the massive, multifaceted corporate giant, Enron

filed for bankruptcy. after a long and complicated history of fraud finally became public. The attrition of profits was so significant that Enron has the legacy of creating the largest bankruptcy due to fraud in all of American history. Now, at any given moment in time leading up to 2001, Enron might have seemed like the ideal investment, but the outcomes unveil the reality

that it was fragile and faulty all along. All of those statistics, the personnel, the profits, the press, and even the projected sense of prudence, they were all faulty metrics because underneath everything was a lie. These days, nobody thinks of Enron as a secure investment. In fact, they don't think of it as an investment at all. They think of it as a scandal.

If only there is a way to know, about the lie to see the scandal before everything fell apart. As we continue, Jesus's magnificent sermon on the Mount in Matthew, we come to a portion where Jesus reveals the lie. He helps us see the scandal of a profoundly insecure investment. And while his teaching here certainly applies to the financial treasures and resources in our lives, Jesus goes even deeper than that. He goes to the heart of what we trust and love for lasting abundance. As we approach God's word together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our time.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of life and breath, and we thank you for your word. We bring before you our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety and our excitement, our calendars and our contingencies. Would you meet us in this space? Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Matthew's Gospel account.

As we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, as we examine Jesus' words here, we'll observe how the truth of His kingdom helps us establish three realities. First, where you set your treasure, second, how you see it, and third, who you serve. So where you set your treasure, how you see it, and who you serve with your treasure. Let's go ahead and start with Matthew 6, verses 19-21, and the question of where we're setting our treasure.

Here are the words of King Jesus. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves, break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Now to help us consider the location of our treasures, where we're placing the investment of our lives, Jesus outlines these contrasting locations of heaven and earth. Earth is an incredibly fragile place to store your treasures. There, it can be destroyed. It can be

corrupted. It can be stolen. Many of us rightly think of this earthly treasure as our finances. Now certainly, our financial resources, our monetary investments, they are exposed as fragile in light of the unpredictable markets and malicious intruders that we face in our world. All of it could be taken away in an instant. But these treasures that are stored up on Earth could also be something less tangible, but no less real. They could be the prestige that you have, that you think that you have, from success or moral superiority.

We saw this kind of earthly treasure in the external righteousness of the Pharisees described right before this passage. Just like a flimsy financial venture, the profits of prestige are easily corrupted or stolen. Storing up treasures on earth is like, going all in on Enron. According to Jesus, it's dangerous. It's a scandal that masquerades as security. Instead of placing our treasures on earth, Jesus tells us to store them up in heaven where they

can't be corrupted, where they won't be captured. Now, it's important to remember here in Matthew's Gospel account, heaven is not this cloud-like existence to escape to. In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is moving into our world. It is not something we escape to. It is a reality we surrender to. And this is why Jesus makes a connection between our treasure and our hearts in verse 21. Remember biblically, the heart is the central seat of our desires and our motivations. So in telling us to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven, Jesus is calling us to put our deepest delight, our dearest desires, the ambition of our hearts, into the abundant flow of His kingdom. To store up your treasures in heaven is to surrender them to the restorative reign of Jesus,

investing your life in His life and in His love. When we put our treasure somewhere, we put our hearts there too. Now it could be hard to see that reality, which is why Jesus addresses the theme of our perception in verses 23 through 23. Here's what he says. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 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? Jesus is making a strong connection between the eye and the rest of our lives. Now on one level, these words from Jesus are diagnostic. If you find yourself seeing, perceiving, and evaluating things badly, you need to diagnose things and check the level of your heart.

You need to get a tune up on your motivations and your desires and your longing. But the eye and lamp imagery here is more than just diagnostic. It also has to do with the direction of our hearts. Just as a lamp projects light on all that surrounds it, what we see and what we're searching for will project into the rest of our lives. It will radiate into our thoughts, our habits, and our relationships. What we're seeing, what we're looking at will shine into every part of our bodies. So according to Jesus here, what you're looking at and what you are looking for will inevitably affect your heart. If you find yourself incessantly checking the balances of your financial accounts, then not just your eyes, but your whole body will be overwhelmed

with the darkness of needing to have more and more and more. If you're always evaluating how people think about you, then not only your eyes, but your whole body will be full of the dark desire of obsessing over their approval of you. Jesus says that this way of investing your life is dangerous. It's darkness. Now, if this wasn't enough to convict us and convince us that we should, frankly, just go schedule a coffee with our mentor soon,

Jesus goes one step further and connects the investment of our lives with the allegiance of our lives. Here he is in verse 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.

Now, according to Jesus here, when it comes to the question of where you put your treasure and how you see it, there is always an underlying issue of trust at work. You're not just treasuring financial gain or prestige from other people. You are trusting in those things. You are serving them

in order to gain a sense of security from them. And this trust cannot be divided in half. If you try to split your allegiance between God and money or God and the approval of other people, you'll end up hating one and loving the other. You can ultimately choose only one master to trust with the investment of your life.

So who or what will it be? You and I are surrounded by so many opportunities to invest our treasures, our perspectives, and our allegiances to something other than Jesus. Each of these idolatrous investments, they promise true security and true abundance, but in reality, they're scandals of attrition. They're all permutations of spiritual Enron,

because underneath each of them is a lie, a lie that we're safer trusting in something or someone other than our Creator King. Jesus is trying to wake us up. He's trying to help us see the scandal of this, and instead set our treasures, set our hearts and our allegiance on him alone. Now, think about your life for a moment. When's the last time you considered where you're setting your treasure? How might you be settling for insecure, earthly investments that are really just a scandal?

What about the issue of perception? Are you seeing or looking for things that are turning the desires of your heart away from Jesus? How might you need to adjust your gaze so you can receive the abundance of his love? And at the end of the day, how does all of this expose who you're serving? Think about how you spend the treasure of your time, your talents, or your finances. Behind the greatest investments of your heart, there is a great allegiance. So who is it too? In the life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus, heaven is flooding into our hearts and into our world.

His heavenly reign is the safest, most satisfying place to invest the riches of your life. the question is, will you store them there? Father, son, and Holy Spirit, would you free our hearts from the attrition of our self-centered sin and free us into the abundance of your kingdom? May the surrender of our treasure reveal that we trust you, that we trust you for life and for love and for everything we need.

We pray all of this because of your grace, for your glory, bigger story. In Jesus' name, amen.