1 Chronicles 26

There are so many things in Scripture that I don’t believe are coincidences. So many things that have layers of meaning—literal to symbolic and everything in between. And I found one of these things in this chapter of Chronicles that further outlined which Levites were in charge: "Shelomith and his relatives were in charge of all the treasuries for the things dedicated by King David... Some of the plunder taken in battle they dedicated for the repair of the temple of the Lord. And everything dedicated by Samuel the seer and by Saul son of Kish... and all the other dedicated things were in the care of Shelomith and his relatives." (vs 26-28)

As I read this, it struck me that the temple was not only the place of worship for Israel, it was also the treasure house. When the nation collected valuable items through diplomacy or battle, they were dedicated to the temple. Is it any coincidence that the place where God dwelt with the Israelites was also where their national treasure was?

This reminded me of the famous saying of Jesus: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:21) I believe that God wanted the place of His presence to be synonymous with the place where the Israelites stored their treasure. In so doing, I think He wanted them to come to the realization that wherever He is is the place where our true treasure is—because He is the treasure!

Of course, by the time Jesus came, it was quite clear that most of the Israelite leadership had totally missed the point. They had set things up at the temple to benefit themselves in a monetary way, and very little of their conduct had anything to do with God or His presence. They were missing out on the real treasure.

Hopefully we’re not. If we don’t realize that God is the only true treasure we’ll ever know, then nothing we have will ever be enough. We’ll always be obsessed with getting more. But when we embrace God as our treasure, we can say, along with the apostle Paul, that we have learned to be content in any circumstance—rich or poor, slave or free.

Every treasure we will ever need, and every treasure our hearts will ever want can only be found in God. In His character, we behold enough gems to outlast an eternity of discovery—and all of these He is willing to share with us. He is anxious for us to find the treasure of our hearts in His presence.

So, I guess it’s worth asking: What kind of treasure is in your temple?