Will We Have Treasure in Heaven?

Yes, through the sanctification of the other and self

Mathew Anthony

35 minutes ago

September 25, 2026

Scholarships we obtain in secular studies launch us into practical careers. Some become owners or decision-makers who pay themselves handsomely but shortchange their workers. We then look for another job for better compensation. This cycle repeats until we choose to retire. Likewise, homemakers attend to chores, a clean house and a well-fed family.

We live an embodied life that one day will cease. On that day, we will either carry scars of a hard life or the look of a Hollywood diva: blemish-free, dewy, flawless, fresh, glowing, satiny, or somewhere in between because we have been so blessed.

Life comes at a cost; man strives all his life to balance the books to stay out of debt.

What about the spiritual world? In the spiritual world, we leave the temporal behind. We cast our burden on Jesus and His promise to those who follow Him.

Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Mt 19: 27-30)

In effect, the life of a spiritual person is shorn of possessions except what is on the person. Not even a pair to change into. But a spiritual person is empowered with supernatural gifts to cast out demons and raise the dead, and natural authority to heal the sick. (Mk 6: 7-13)

That is a giant leap to take for someone who has everything except what money cannot buy. Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mt 19: 16,21,22)

Those reading this reflection (and me) have not sold our possessions and given to the poor, so what happens to us? Will we not have treasure in heaven?

We have a different ministry. While the spiritual person concerns himself with prayer, fasting, administering the sacraments to the flock - the faithful - as a priest or religious, or doing charitable work or work of building the human mind and spirit as an educator, the family man too is entrusted with the duties of caring for the physical, emotional, and psychological needs of the flock of his faithful - his family, his neighbours, and the larger community that sustains him and his family. As a family man, he needs to observe certain tenets in his relationship with his wife, and vice versa. The responsibility is on the man.

One of the big issues St. Paul speaks of is sexual immorality that was rampant among the Corinthians. A healthy family life saves a man and the woman from this grave sin. When infidelity and sexual immorality enter a sacramental married life, it manifests in several other deviant behaviours, from lying to the spread of communicable diseases, secrecy, and aberrations in the management of the family savings. The seed of depravity is sown; it is generational.

In a healthy family life, St Paul says, each is a source of spiritual strength to the other.

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. If a woman has a husband who is not a believer and is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1 Cor 7: 12-14)

The hallmark of a healthy family life is peace in the home:

But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. (1 Cor 7: 15)

Will we who have not sold our possessions have ‘treasure in heaven’?

How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. (1 Cor 7: 16-17)

Increasingly, we are having interfaith marriages. Bollywood symbolises it most, with leading actors in interfaith marriages that work for them. Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan are a prime example of a healthy interfaith marriage with three children - no acrimony has been reported by the ravenous media vultures. However, some dispensationalists make an issue of it for their own bigoted reasons.

When such marriages fail, they are attributed to interfaith marriage. To what should failed marriages among Christians be attributed? God? Or individuals’ inability to give of themselves to others. To use suffering as a means of sanctification of the other. Marriages fail for many reasons. On top of the heap is sheer selfishness. Marriages survive because one partner is willing to be a punching bag, using that as a prayer for the other person’s salvation. In that we have treasure in heaven.

- Mathew Anthony

Will You Make It to Heaven?

Adam and Eve had the benefit of walking with God in the Garden of Eden (our idea of eternal life), landscaped for their creature comforts. To ensure their absolute obedience, God also planted a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:8-9). 

They failed the test. They ate of the tree. Shame, symbolised by nakedness, overwhelmed them. They hid from God after doing the unpardonable. Grave consequences followed. First, they died spiritually. God was no longer walking with them. Now, they had to provide for themselves by the sweat of their brow and in pain. Then they died physically. And, in the next generation, conflict arose between Cain and Abel. God was pleased with Abel’s offering, and not with Cain's. Murder followed. Then mayhem with an assortment of sin became the norm.

God came down from the heavens. Mount Sinai (Horeb), with Moses, merged with the heavens. God was in the Word Cloud. God spoke to Moses. God wrote the Ten Commandments on two tablets and handed them over to Moses.

1400 years later, Jesus, the new Moses, perfected the Ten Commandments. The First four of the Ten Commandments relate to our relationship with God. The next six relate to our fellow men. They contain the ‘do not’ for, as we said, that was the norm then.

In the Gospel of Matthew 19:16-22, The Rich Man and the Kingdom of God, notice Jesus' line of questioning of the rich man. He focused on the six ‘do not’ commandments:

¹⁶ Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” ¹⁷ “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” ¹⁸ “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’” ²⁰ “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

It would be fair to assume that those who have chosen to read this article are also seeking eternal life. Most of us have inherited our faith – and some have converted from other faiths or faithlessness. We get our clarity on eternal life from one indisputable fact. Jesus suffered, died, went down to the dead, and on the third day He rose and ascended into heaven. 

As St Paul says, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, your preaching is useless and so is your faith.” – 1 Cor 15:13-14

The question we need to ask is how seriously do we take the matter of eternal life? Worse, do we take it for granted that because we have not committed murder or adultery, or theft or borne false witness, and honoured our parents, and loved our neighbour as ourselves, we will receive eternal life?

There are two problems with this illusion that we maintain.

One, the ‘do nots’: we have committed murder when we allowed death through hunger; committed adultery by entertaining adulterous thoughts; stolen by retaining what does not belong to us; and have borne false witness when we gossiped without any knowledge of the person's circumstances; and we have not honoured our parents when they experience loneliness, they are not provided for, their loss of memory becomes a source of embarrassment and annoyance to us, and when they fall sick we feel burdened by the responsibility of caring for them; and lastly, do we really understand what is to love ourselves to truly extend it to our neighbours in a way that will benefit them?

Two, the relationship with God:

In Ezekiel 24:15-24, the passage is on ‘Ezekiel's wife’s death’. We have to infer that Ezekiel loved his wife dearly. What is this Bible passage conveying to us about what God wants to tell us?

God is saying, ¹⁶ “Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes.” ²⁰ So I said to them, “The word of the Lord came to me: Say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to desecrate my sanctuary—the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, the object of your affection.” – Ezekiel 24:16,20-21  

We have got to ask: ‘What is the delight of our eyes, the object of our affection?’ In this instance, God is talking not of a person – Ezekiel's wife's death being a metaphor. God is talking about the Jerusalem Temple – the sanctuary. The Israelites came to believe that as long as the Temple is there – God’s presence is there – and they can go about their merry lives – in breach of every commandment of God – both the relationship with God and with their fellow men.

To disabuse them of this belief, God says, “I am about to desecrate my sanctuary”. Repent, says God. Did they? No. The Temple was razed to the ground by King Nebuchadnezzar 1 – God’s own instrument for this purpose. They restored the Temple and rebuilt Jerusalem under Nehemiah on returning from the Babylonian exile, and desecrated it again to be destroyed in 70 AD, this time by the Romans – the same people the Israelites asked to crucify Jesus, because their law did not permit them to do so themselves.

So, we have got to ask the critical question: what is the person or object that is the delight of our eyes that neither lets us relate to fellow men nor to God?

The rich man at least kept the tail-end commandments, and Jesus, knowing the hearts and minds of men, accepted it at face value and was pleased with the rich young man. Do we think we can at least pass this test? 

²¹ Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” ²² When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

That was his object of affection. He could not let go.

The ‘Account of the three companions of Saint Francis of Assisi (c.1244) follows in Post Script on how another very rich man, Lord Bernard, did with the help of Blessed Francis. It is good to note in the companion read how Francis discerned if Lord Bernard was doing the right thing. So do read it.

-        Mathew Anthony