The Best Investment Strategy

I have been laying out my goals and dreams for 2012, and, as always, it has gotten my brain thinking soberly about my life. What am I investing my life into? 

I work in the financial world, so I often find myself comparing a personal concept to it's business counterpart.  When investing money we all know that the only smart purchase is one that will increase in value. But do we understand this when we are dealing with our time? Our lives? Our brains? Our relationships? Our energy? Our youth?

You see, some buy high and sell low. They spend everything they have on what everyone else is doing. The newest fashions, the top video games, the latest movies, the most popular concerts, the hottest TV shows, etc. They fill their brains up with useless information about things that don't really matter - worldiness and philosophies. Their greatest treasure is a good time. But, it comes down to this: when they look back 5 or 10 years from now will they find that they made a good investment with all that time, energy, and money? Will they regret decisions?

Others are careful. They weigh everything before they spend anything on it. The question they always ask is: how will this benefit me and everyone around me? If there is no benefit to be gained, they pass. They invest time into worthwhile endeavors. They spend their money on lasting purchases. They invest into true friendships. They pour energy into righteous causes. They use their brains to invent and create things that will benefit generations to come. Their youth is spent building firm foundations for the rest of their life. Their greatest treasure is instruction and a lesson learned. They invest with wisdom and reap real rewards.

"My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; THEN you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; He guards the paths of justice, and preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you." -Proverbs 2:1-11

And what will Wisdom and Understanding get you?

Proverbs 3 (read the chapter, these are all in there)

• Long life
• Peace
• Favor and high esteem with God and man
• Health and strength
• Happiness
• Life to your soul
• Grace to your neck
• Safety - walk without stumbling (how many of us would love to not make stupid mistakes?)
• Freedom from fear
• Sweet sleep
• The blessing of the Lord

But where is the adventure in that? Where is the fun?
You tell me.
Sure, there is a time and place for fun, and movies, and chilling with friends, and watching hilarious music videos on Youtube. But the real question is, 50 years from now, when you look back on your life, will it really matter if you beat all levels of that game. Or if you saw that artist in concert 15 times? Or if you watched every episode of that sitcom? Or that you saw that movie in 3D? Or originated that hilarious meme?

Is the real adventure, perhaps, to be found in using infinite materials to build something eternal?

Don't get me wrong, the preacher is preaching to herself on this one, too. On looking back on my last 25 years days, I find I have wasted plenty of precious time on silliness. And I realize it is time I will never have returned to me. But I also realize I have many years of time ahead of me to remedy my habits and start living like I'm part of something grand. I have time to gain wisdom, and with it, all the rewards of wisdom.

Time spent in the Bible and gaining wisdom will never be time wasted. Energy used to walk in understanding and advance the Kingdom of God is energy invested well. It will bring an eternal reward.

You only have this moment for this moment.
What are you going to spend it on?
Get to it!

The Answer = You

“The Israelites did evil in the LORD's sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.” (Judges 6:1-6)

If this story happened in modern times it would, perhaps, look like this...

A culture plagued with problems like materialism, entertainment, immorality, teen pregnancy, murder, injustice in government systems, lost generations of young people…
It would look like a church that forgot the power they possessed, and so became oppressed by society and had their freedoms taken one-by-one…

Sound familiar?
Yes, because it is where we live.

I personally have seen too much of the American church living in oppression, and going into hiding.
Oh, it did not start in my generation. No it started long ago. We did once live in a godly nation, but slowly the enemy began to creep into our culture.
First, he took the entertainment – and the church withdrew.
Then he grabbed music industry too – and the church acted as if nothing happened.
He took over our businesses – and the church lost the fathers, so the mothers took over.
He stole into our families and homes – and the church gave him the spare room.
Then he began to steal our youth – and the church labeled them as needing to find themselves, so we left them to themselves.
Then he crept into our education system – and the church bought into the lies.
He broke our marriages – and the church acquiesced because it was “easier that way”.
He began to kill the unborn – and we turned our faces away. Yes, we made an outcry, but it was too faint and too late.
He set out to ruin the definition of marriage – and the church shrugged its shoulders and said “What is this world coming to?”

He took over the world and we shook our heads in pity and did nothing.
So, when he came knocking on the door of the Church we shrunk back in fear and let him in to plunder what he would.

Now we hear of legislation that puts a gag in the mouth of the church, and the church gets mad…for a moment…then we are lulled back into passivity out of fear.

Yes, some radicals run to the hills to become weird activists, scared of every bump in the night. They have bunkers, pantries stocked with beans and ammo. They hide their children away from the prying eyes of “the government”, and cry wolf every time a “liberal” opens their mouth…but they don’t really DO anything.
Most of us, though, hide in plain view in our well manicured subdivisions, keeping to ourselves because we are afraid to be the only one to speak out…or perhaps we have just forgotten what we were called to.

We’ve become reactionaries. We were called to be people of action.
We struggle on the best we can. We were called to thrive in our promised land.
We thresh our wheat in a winepress. We were called to be a city set on a hill, not hidden.

I know we have all been disturbed by the state of things in our nation. We have prayed, we have cried to the Lord.
What is the answer?

“Then the Angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The Angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!" "Sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say, 'The LORD brought us up out of Egypt'? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites." Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!" (Judges 6:11-14)

Here is the answer.

The first thing Gideon did was start pouring out his complaint to the Lord and his frustration at all that was happening. He asked for a solution, someone strong to come and save them.

The Lord’s answer was simple. He didn’t answer by raising up someone else, he responded by sending Gideon.
“You see the problem, you go take of it. You are tired of your lack of freedom? YOU go be the deliverer.”
This passion that you feel because your inheritance has been stolen is the might that will propel you forward. The hand of the Lord works through you…you are His weapon of choice.

God did it with Gideon, with Moses, with Esther…what would have happened if Martin Luther had waited for another person to stand up?

YOU are the answer to the problems of your culture! If you see a problem, it is your call to go and take care of it. Don’t wait for someone else, don’t look at another person to volunteer.
Don’t wait for some deliverer to rise up from another quarter. Yes, the Lord may raise someone up, but will your generation die in the meantime?

If you are sick of a corrupt political system, get involved in politics. TODAY, before it gets worse. If you are concerned with the welfare programs. Get involved. If you have a passion for the youth of the city, YOU start dreaming up ideas and knocking on the doors of city officials. If you are worried about the state of the church, YOU raise the standard of holiness. You learn how to teach and preach! If you are sick of movies that make immorality and death and violence the norm get out into the movie industry and learn your trade well. If you want to see good Christian artists in the music industry, quit dreaming and start training.

Yes, you can dream all you want, you can even plan all you want, but in order to affect a change you are going to have to wake up and start DOING something, PREPARING for something.


“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt

What are you passionate about?