This devotional really resonated. I’ve been musing about this more in recent years, especially given the property boom, and constant talk of investing for better returns.
Many have asked why we make the housing and investment decisions (or rather non-decisions) that we do, and we also muse about whether we are singularly lacking in ambition, and whether we will be called to task when Christ comes again and asks whether and why we have buried the one talent he endowed us with in the ground.
Nonetheless, this devotional has reminded me once again that indeed our perceived lack of ambition in the things of this world might ’mask’ our greater ’conniving’ ambition for the eternal things of heaven. Many a time, it is hard to perceive (since we now see through a mirror darkly), but this life is such a tiny blip, so why should we exert all our time and energy in maximising what we have here, and neglect investing for returns that will last for all eternity?
I read about investing for the ’long-term’ and for retirement often, and ads by organisations like Endowus proliferate. Invest, make your money work harder, buy the largest property you can get a loan for, inflation is eroding everything… messages premised on the Fear of Missing Out bombard us everyday.
But in the long run, we are all dead indeed. And the real long run is heaven, where we will face our Maker, and where the true returns from all that we have spent our time and money on here on earth will come to bear.
A minute spent teaching sunday school, having a meal with a homeless man, reading a book to a child with an incarcerated parent, saying hello to a newcomer, praying for a missionary friend will far outweigh an hour spent pontificating in the boardroom, calculating returns on fixed deposits, or searching out the best buys for your home on the internet.
When Jesus comes and says, what have you done with your time and money with the moments I have given you on earth, what will we say?
So we must be ambitious, carefully and prayerfully deciding what we will do with our time – so that these investments will reap eternal dividends and increase to our ‘credit’ in heaven. For everything we have on earth will rot and rust at best, and at worst, corrupt those who come after us if we leave too much behind that they cannot handle wisely.
So let us live simply, according to our conscience before God. And give generously to God’s kingdom purposes, at least a tenth of gross income, according to the spirit of what God’s word requires. After all, every breath we take is sustained only by His grace, and every cent we earn is by His enabling alone.
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