A rich man once asked Christ Jesus, “What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus recommended he “keep the commandments.”
“All these things have I kept from my youth up,” the man replied. “What lack I yet?”
Jesus answered, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” The man turned away from Jesus’ counsel. The Bible says “he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions” (see Matthew 19:16–22).
Perhaps treasure in heaven seemed to him distant, abstract, and not very well suited to his present need. Certainly it doesn’t seem to have struck him as a worthy reward for selling his material goods and giving to the poor.
The kingdom of heaven—our conscious and present oneness with God as His spiritual reflection—contains all the good that we would ever need.
But Jesus wasn’t teaching him, or us, that one must sacrifice a right sense of human supply in order to find the kingdom of heaven. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, assures us of this as well in her much-loved statement, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 494). Jesus proved the validity of this statement. When he was faced with upwards of five thousand hungry people in the desert, and had nothing to feed them with but five loaves of bread and two fish, he proved God to be the source of infinite supply. Even after everyone had eaten their fill, 12 baskets of leftovers remained (see Matthew 14:14–21).
Jesus had assured the rich man that by following Christ, the man would have what he humanly needed, but also much more. Jesus wasn’t saying to the man that it was safe to give up his material stuff because there was plenty more material stuff waiting for him. If that were the case, “treasure in heaven” would symbolize nothing more than the very same material possessions and pleasures which this man was supposed to part with! What the treasure Jesus spoke of truly symbolizes is not material, but spiritual substance and abundance.
Jesus was showing the rich man that he needed to be willing to change his view of what substance really is, to give up a materialistic way of thinking. He needed to stop thinking of matter as substance and start recognizing divine Spirit as the only reality, as eternally unfolding all good. If the man would follow Jesus—if he would give up his trust in materialism, and put his trust in the spiritual power of God that heals the sick and reforms the sinning—he would so gain in spirituality as to find the richest treasure that exists.
In another of Jesus’ instructions he tells his followers, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). To be willing to seek the kingdom of heaven, however, we need to see the value of the treasure therein. Material sense may concede that the kingdom of God is a beautiful, if distant, concept. But this same material sense will argue that God, Spirit, is of little practical value. It would make us ask ourselves, “Why take the trouble to seek the kingdom of heaven if it contains nothing that can help us here and now?”
As we learn to cherish the true spiritual sense of goodness instead of the material sense, that real spiritual goodness becomes more apparent in our human experience.
When we change our view of what is truly substantial, however, and recognize that substance is of Spirit and not of matter, we see that the kingdom of heaven—our conscious and present oneness with God as His spiritual reflection—contains all the good that we would ever need, including all right supply. And we see that that divine law can be demonstrated in our present human experience. No good actually exists outside of the ever-present kingdom of heaven. If heavenly treasure seems useless and impractical to us, then our material sense of what’s good must be regenerated and uplifted until we see that all real goodness is spiritual. And because that spiritual goodness is real, it is always present for us. It is the outcome of perfect Love, God, who tenderly cares for each of His spiritual ideas, each one of us. As we learn to cherish the true spiritual sense of goodness instead of the material sense, that real spiritual goodness becomes more apparent in our human experience. We see it made manifest in the things we need humanly, and we also see it made manifest in our hearts chastened, our lives uplifted.
Christian Science shows that goodness is the outcome of God, who is all good and the source of it. If we look for abundance in matter, we find only that which is limited, temporary, insubstantial, and subject to discord and decay. The material possessions the rich man was so loathe to part with were ultimately destined to vanish in oblivion anyway. The treasure Jesus offered him was inexhaustible and eternal. Moreover, that treasure was present right then. It wasn’t a distant promise, nor was it just something to be admired and thought of as a nice idea—it was a real and provable treasure that could and would sustain and support the man, meeting his every need.
One morning, a man stared at his checkbook in despair. Many bills demanded payment, but the checkbook balance was woefully inadequate. Finally, looking away from the bad financial picture, he began to pray. As he turned to God, this thought came to him: “I would not stick a thermometer in my mouth to determine the state of my health; my health is spiritual, divinely established and maintained. A thermometer reading can’t tell me how healthy I am, and a checkbook balance can’t tell me anything about my financial health—it can’t tell me anything about supply, which is also divinely established and maintained.”
With that new spiritual perception, the man went on to affirm in prayer that all his efforts to support his family through right motives and activity were divinely protected. He could rely on spiritual, not material, good. That spiritual good was infinite and always present to meet every need.
That morning, the man found a satisfactory way to pay his bills. The family grew more aware of the spiritual good always protecting and sustaining them. There were still many difficult challenges ahead. Some of the resolutions came in highly unexpected ways. But the despair of that morning never returned.
The rich man who came to Jesus failed to change his understanding of supply from a material to a spiritual basis. It can sometimes seem hard to acknowledge that we need to change fundamentally the way we think. If we have ever felt resistance to spirituality within ourselves, then perhaps we can view with compassion the rich man’s decision to forgo the gift Jesus offered. But we must remember that Jesus makes the same offer to us. If we are willing to let go of materialism and gain hold of spiritual substance, we will find all supply, the inexhaustible treasure of heaven.
