Defining The Terms: The "Treasure" - What Is A God?

I’m sure you would agree with me that a treasure hunt with no treasure is void and useless. I mean, it kind of negates the idea of there being a hunt in the first place if there is no goal, no object you are seeking after at the end of it, right? In the same way, we use our life – our effort, energy, time, money and resources – to seek after something: we chase after that which we believe will give us satisfaction, peace, fulfilment, value and purpose . This is what we would say is the “treasure”.

The treasure can be many things – the most popular in our culture being things like wealth, success, romantic love, fame, sex, our own personal comfort, etc. It is whatever we idolise as being the thing that will give us true life. This is what we call a “god”, and it can be any person or any thing in this world.

Relating this back to the “hunt” being worship, what happens is we will do whatever is required to hunt for our treasure – that is, we will do whatever necessary with our time, money, effort, passion and devotion to hunt for (worship) our treasure (god or gods).

Let me give you an example

Imagine I am a married woman and I see wealth as the ultimate treasure (i..e. the thing I believe will satisfy me). Now imagine that my husband really wants to have kids, but I don't because children are expensive and it means I won't be able to accumulate as much money. So, because of my god, I deny my husband what he wants and ultimately sacrifice our marriage and having children in the pursuit of wealth.

Incidentally, some forms of treasure are often used to “unlock” other forms of treasure. Going back to my example just mentioned, it might be that the reason I worship wealth is because I want to impress everyone around me – meaning that I have made a god out of pleasing other people and getting them to think that I’m great. Or maybe I pursue wealth because I want to party all the time and go on luxury holidays several times a year, because I live my life for having fun. Do you see what I mean?

If it still doesn't make complete sense – don't worry. The idea of this blog is that I am going to be looking at many, many different examples and showing you in those scenarios what is being worshipped (the treasure, the god) and how it is being worshipped (the hunt) – and then showing how this contrasts to worshipping the only true God – the God of the Bible as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. I want to demonstrate that He is the real treasure, where true life and joy and peace and purpose and satisfaction are found through following (worshipping) Him.

As C.S. Lewis famously said,

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” (‘The Weight of Glory’)

So, ask yourself this: what do you live for...?