The Investment You Didn't Know You Were Making

Enron looked like a perfect investment. Twenty thousand employees. Over $100 billion in revenue. Named America's Most Innovative Company by Fortune six years running. A well-publicized code of ethics. Then in 2001, it filed for bankruptcy—the largest fraud-related bankruptcy in American history. "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."

This is the analogy Jeff Perrin uses to introduce Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:19–24. The point is not about stock portfolios. Jesus is helping his listeners see that they are always investing their lives somewhere—and that many of those investments look secure while actually being fragile, corruptible, and built on a lie.

Where Your Treasure Goes, Your Heart Follows

Jesus begins with a direct command: "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." The contrast is between two locations for investment—earth and heaven—and earth turns out to be an extraordinarily fragile place to put anything that matters.