Matthew 6:21

For where your treasure is--that which ye value most. there will your heart be also--"Thy treasure--thy heart" is probably the true reading here: "your," in Luk 12:34, from which it seems to have come in here. Obvious though this maxim be, by what multitudes who profess to bow to the teaching of Christ is it practically disregarded! "What a man loves," says LUTHER, quoted by THOLUCK, "that is his God. For he carries it in his heart, he goes about with it night and day, he sleeps and wakes with it; be it what it may--wealth or pelf, pleasure or renown." But because "laying up" is not in itself sinful, nay, in some cases enjoined (Co2 12:14), and honest industry and sagacious enterprise are usually rewarded with prosperity, many flatter themselves that all is right between them and God, while their closest attention, anxiety, zeal, and time are exhausted upon these earthly pursuits. To put this right, our Lord adds what follows, in which there is profound practical wisdom.

Christ having, in the former chapter, armed his disciples against the corrupt doctrines and opinions of the scribes and Pharisees, especially in their expositions of the law (that was called their leaven, Mat 16:12), comes in this chapter to warn them against their corrupt practices, against the two sins which, though in their doctrine they did not justify, yet in their conversation they were notoriously guilty of, and so as even to recommend them to their admirers: these were hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness, sins which, of all others, the professors of religion need most to guard against, as sins that most easily beset those who have escaped the grosser pollutions that are in the world through lust, and which are therefore highly dangerous. We are here cautioned, I. Against hypocrisy; we must not be as the hypocrites are, nor do as the hypocrites do. 1. In the giving of alms (Mat 6:1-4). 2. In prayer (Mat 6:5-8). We are here taught what to pray for, and how to pray (Mat 6:9-13); and to forgive in prayer (Mat 6:14, Mat 6:15). 3. In fasting (Mat 6:16-18). II. Against worldly-mindedness, 1. In our choice, which is the destroying sin of hypocrites (Mat 6:19-24). 2. In our cares, which is the disquieting sin of many good Christians (Mat 6:25-34).