We American believers have taken the mentality of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too to new extremes even though we intuitively know that this is not the way of the kingdom. We want the BOTH-AND, the WIN-WIN situations where we get everything we want. Early on, most of us learned that this was not the reality. “You can either have the baseball cards OR the army men, NOT both”—my mother used to tell me. This matter would be little more than interesting if so many believers did not bring this BOTH-AND mentality into how they relate to the kingdom of God and the things of this world.19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” You’ll notice that Jesus gives a choice—you can either lay-up treasures on earth—which are perishable OR, you can lay up treasures in heaven-which are imperishable and last forever. There is not a BOTH-AND option here. This means that we cannot think to ourselves, “I will pursue wealth, gather possessions, gain status and influence and I will use those to leverage kingdom ministry.” That is the BOTH-AND position and it is American materialism dressed up in kingdom language. Jesus calls us to a choice. Either the treasures of this world—the things this world goes after—that we can have NOW, OR the treasures in heaven we must wait for.
