What are You Invested in?

What are You Invested in?

by David Brenneman 

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7-8 NASB 

To sow is defined as: plant seed by scattered on the earth. Also plant seeds of a plant or crop.  

It implies an intentional investment of time, energy and effort. Of focus of intention to gain a positive result. 

Now, re-read that opening passage with those definitions in mind.  

Changes your perspective doesn't it?  

We don't consider much of our lives as being as personal as it really is in light of Scripture.  It's either us investing all that in us, or it's us investing in something greater than us.  Jesus implored the Disciples to beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.  Here's that reference again to reaping something sewn.  

What are you doing in your days?  Focused on you or on what you've been called to do in Christ?  Pushing product or services or living out a life in Christ as He intended for you?  My prayer these days for me is to be working at whatever it is that lets me use my talents and abilities given to me by God for God.  That includes employment. That includes 'home life'.  It includes being out in the world.  The harvest Jesus spoke of is the world.  That sort of encompasses everyone.   Note that implies everything as well.  

Steven Curtis Chapman has that song out called "Do Everything" many years ago.

It's message is clear:  do everything to the glory of the One who made you because He made you to do everything for Him...to tell the story of grace in our lives.

As the song goes on to say...we often wonder if it matters at all.  It does matter as long as what we do is for the right reasons.   As Jesus said in this opening passage...of what and who we sew our seeds into.

I've learned a very, well, painful, lesson while living those 20 plus years in the wilderness.  I'm, at heart, a very loyal person to what it is I do and to whom I do things for.  It wasn't until we were granted this gift of moving here, did it finally hit me that the toll it took on me for putting so much of me into a company was too much.  My priorities are to be God, my Wife, then others, then me.  Scriptures says to prefer one another above yourself.  Jesus lived that out.  We should live that out.  It may mean waiting on the things that we 'want'...or at least think we want at the time.

Are you investing in what Jesus wants you to be investing in...which is people?  Or are you investing in self?  Your wants, your desires, your this, your that?

Are you justifying taking the blessings He's bestowed upon you and spend them on yourself rather than using those things to invest in others?   Take a good hard look at what you've accumulated.  Look at where your time goes.  Remember sewing seed involves time, energy, and effort.  Time was the first part.  Energy.  Our passion, our gusto, our moxi, emotions, take all that and give it a Godly direction if you aren't.  EVERYTHING you own will be left behind for someone else to deal with should God call you home.  Look at all the estate sales that keep happening.  Total strangers invited in to dispose of someone else's belongings.  No sense of emotional attachment to those things that the original owner who passed away had for them.  Not a person in Heaven or Hell is concerned about that china cabinet or those sets of dishes or all the clothes or trinkets.  

When we get to that day when Jesus calls all who have believed into giving an account...it's NOT going to be about how much stuff we had.  It's what we did for Jesus while in the body.  Not what we did for self that will come out of that fire it will be tested by.  Self will be burned up and be consumed by that fire.  What's done for Christ will remain and come out of the other side of that fire.

When you consider this day you step into...the clothes you go through to wear, the food you've chosen to consume, the drink you will either make or stop by some place to get, is all of that being done to the glory of God?   The warnings of God for the end times starts out with "lovers of self...".  Does this define you?

Are you justifying your actions with a deceptive belief in how you deserve this or that?   Jesus said "for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." in Matthew 6:21 NASB.  

Nothing is as important to a farmer as good seed.  Of planting intentionally what they want to see as a crop.  They want a specific result at the end of their labors.  Much is spent, on the order of billions per year, on wasted things.  "Planned obsolescence" is built into most everything you buy.  From food to appliances and vehicles.  Even your medications are not designed to make you truly healthy.  Consider how those are even described!  "Maintenance drugs".  

What are you sewing in your life?  What are you investing in?   My dream job, which I pray for daily, is to have a job where I can help people with the talents and abilities that God gave me over the course of my life.  I want to invest in people, not products.  I want my loyalty to be with the One who saved me.  I saw a description given after I took an online test a few years ago of a type of person called a Reliable Realist.  It does pretty much sum up much of me.

A Reliable Realist is a very precise, reserved and demanding person.  Their most prominent quality is reliability and they will always make every effort to keep any promise given. They are more quiet and serious people.  They do not talk a lot but they are good listeners.

God first, people second, ourselves last.  Don't take what blessings are given to us and waste them in sewing to ourselves first.  First fruits belong to God.

Be honest with you.  While Jesus hasn't come back yet, you still have time to sew your time, energy and effort into His harvest.  Get to it!