#37 The Heart Should Be Engage in Seeking After The Treasures of HeavenWhen the Psalmist says: “Thou hast ascended on high,” he expresses but the same truth which Christ Himself declares before Pilate, as we have seen above, namely: “My kingdom is not of this world.” We ought therefore as Christians to raise our hearts and thoughts on high, and seek first of all with diligence and great anxiety this spiritual kingdom; yea, although the field of our labor is on earth, where we have our vocation, our family, our cares for the support of our temporal existence and the government of the State, and the like, yet we ought ever to fulfill first this duty, to seek the kingdom of heaven. Do we do it? The greater portion of mankind is so absorbed, with soul and body, in the transactions of this life, that but little attention, or none at all, is given to the fact that Christ ascended on high. The Holy Ghost therefore earnestly desires to dispel this groveling spirit, and to teach us the truth that Christ did not remain on earth, but that He ascended on high, and that consequently we, even while we dwell in the body here below, should ascend to Him in our thoughts and mind, nor permit the cares of this world to burden our hearts.
Thus ought the Christians to distribute their powers. The body and the old Adam, as we have stated, may indeed be busied with the temporal work of every day life, but the heart should be engaged in seeking after the treasures of heaven, as St. Paul exhorts, Col. 3: “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Luther’s House Postil, Ascension Day, Volume 2, p. 571)