Investment

Jim Elliot wrote in his journal on October 28, 1949, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” That came to mind this morning as I was reading Psalm 39. In verses 5, 6, and 11, David describes his and our life as a handbreadth, a breath. James describes our lives as a vapor in 4:14 of his book. I believe all of this. I struggle with all of this.

The “problems” of this life, this handbreadth, are in my face daily. It is easy to focus on them and forget that they are sub-temporary in relation to the reality of who the Bible says I am in Christ. I fret about the state of our family’s finances, the state of the nation, if my kids can make it through the challenges that they face in life – forgetting Philippians 3:20, I am  not a citizen here. Forgetting Colossians 3:1 – 3, my life is not here. As C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it, we live in the Shadowlands.

In Matthew 6:19 – 21, Christ commands us to live with that reality in mind. Our focus is not to be here, now. It is to be on there, then. Heaven, eternity. We are to invest, what we cannot keep, our lives, our money, our vaporous existence, in that which we cannot loose, our eternal life in Christ’s kingdom. Further, we are to be about rounding up as many people as we can to join us there, Jude 22 – 23.