QFD | Treasured : Entry 1 - When Money Moves, the Heart Speaks
- Herbert Berkley
- Dec 6
- 5 min read
Treasured : Entry 1 - When Money Moves, the Heart Speaks
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” —Matthew 6:21 (ESV)
Money is honest in ways we often are not. It speaks plainly even when we hesitate. It reveals loyalties we didn’t intend to show. It answers questions we haven’t dared to ask.
Before we explain ourselves, excuse ourselves, or defend ourselves, money has already told the truth.
It does not reveal the heart when it sits in the account. It reveals the heart when it moves—when it leaves the hand, when it follows desire, when it reaches instinctively for comfort, escape, or identity.
Jesus places this truth at the center of discipleship:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”—Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)
Jesus is not speaking about financial strategy. He is diagnosing the gravitational pull of the soul.
Treasure (thēsauros) is not merely accumulated wealth—it is accumulated allegiance. Where treasure gathers, the heart settles. Where money repeatedly moves, worship follows.
A Moment in the Parking Lot
I have lived moments like this—pulling into the driveway after a long day, hands still resting on the steering wheel. Before I even step out of the car, the thoughts begin their familiar rotation: the bills, the balances, the due dates, the grocery lists, the repairs waiting their turn, the pressures we quietly label “just to survive,” and the ongoing mental equation of how to stretch what feels too thin.
In those moments, money isn’t numbers—it’s pressure. It becomes a litany of responsibilities that rarely pause. And beneath all of it sits a deeper question I don’t always want to face: Where will my treasure go? And what does that reveal about my trust?
I’ve felt that tension. Most of us have. You can love the Lord and still feel the pull of financial fear, desire, and fatigue.
This is why Jesus speaks so directly to the heart. Money doesn’t only pay bills—it exposes the quiet contest between trust and self-reliance.
Money as Mirror, Not Mask
Scripture never treats money as something that hides the truth. It treats money as something that draws the truth into the open.
“It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.”—Psalm 118:8 (ESV)
Trusting in money is trusting in man—trusting in our ability to engineer security, manufacture comfort, or secure rest on our own terms.
Money exposes:
what we protect
what we fear losing
what we use to soothe ourselves
what we rely on when anxiety rises
what we quietly refuse to surrender to God
We can disguise our motives with words, but money refuses to cooperate. Its patterns speak plainly.
The Direction of Money Reveals the Direction of Worship
A financial history is never merely numerical. It is a spiritual biography—line by line, decision by decision.
Ask quietly:
Where does my money move without hesitation?
What causes instant generosity—and what triggers resistance?
What purchases feel necessary for identity or comfort?
What giving feels risky, as if obedience threatens my security?
What do I fund faithfully, and what do I postpone indefinitely?
We rarely say, “This is my god.” But our spending patterns quietly reveal which altar we approach most often.
Here is the unavoidable conclusion Jesus presses on us: If treasure consistently avoids God, so does the heart. It cannot be otherwise.
Why Money Grabs the Soul So Easily
Money offers what the fallen heart craves:
control
safety
insulation
pleasure
validation
a buffer against the unknown
It whispers promises only God can keep. It suggests its help is more immediate than trust, more tangible than prayer, more accessible than obedience.
But Jesus speaks with piercing clarity:
“No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and money.”—Matthew 6:24 (ESV)
He does not say it is difficult. He says it is impossible.
Money is never content to be a tool; it always attempts to be a master. It seeks a throne.
Money Moves Like a Discipleship Path
Whatever regularly receives your money is shaping your desires:
If comfort receives your money, comfort becomes your expectation.
If image receives your money, image becomes your identity.
If escape receives your money, escape becomes your instinct.
If the kingdom receives your money, the kingdom becomes your compass.
We walk toward what we fund. The heart follows the habit.
Money is not simply an expression of spiritual formation—it is one of its engines.
Your habits are not separate from your transformation—they are your transformation.
God Uses Money to Train the Heart
Scripture weaves this truth through every era:
“Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce.”—Proverbs 3:9 (ESV)
Not because God needs our resources, but because our hearts need liberation from them.
Consider Israel in the wilderness:
“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna…that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone.”—Deuteronomy 8:3 (ESV)
Manna trained trust. Generosity trains humility. Sacrifice trains obedience. Open hands train confidence in God rather than in goods.
Money sits at the crossroads of trust, obedience, surrender, and identity.
The Heart Begins to Speak
Eventually, each of us must ask:
What story is the movement of my money telling?
Do my habits reveal trust, fear, or indifference?
Are there comforts I treat as “needs” to avoid God’s challenge?
Does my giving reflect gratitude or resistance?
What would change in my heart if Christ fully governed this area of my life?
These questions are not meant to shame—they are meant to clarify and free.
We cannot surrender what we refuse to examine.
The Christ-Shaped Closure
The goal is not to tighten our grip on money but to loosen its grip on us. Jesus leads the way—not by demanding wealth, but by relinquishing it.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”—2 Corinthians 8:9 (ESV)
His poverty is not humiliation—it is revelation. He shows us the shape of true wealth: obedience, communion, surrender, inheritance.
Christ does not ask us to do what He avoided. He invites us into the freedom He walked first. He broke the chains money places around the human heart, so that we might learn to desire what truly lasts.
Where our treasure was once scattered, He gathers it. Where our money once dictated our loyalties, He reorders them by grace. Where our habits once shaped our hearts, He reshapes our habits by His Spirit.
The heart speaks when money moves. Now, through Christ, our money can finally speak truth.
