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What are you investing yourself in this week?
Devotional Thoughts of the day:
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name. John 20:30-31 HCSB
317 What zeal men put into their earthly affairs! Dreaming of honors, striving for riches, bent on sensuality! Men and women, rich and poor, old and middle-aged and young and even children: all of them alike. When you and I put the same zeal into the affairs of our souls, then we’ll have a living and working faith. And there will be no obstacle that we cannot overcome in our apostolic works.
It’s Monday morning, and another work week stands before us.
What are you going to do with it? Where are you going to spend the assets you have? What can you do, that will give the greatest return on investment?
I dare say St. John had a similar question in mind when he penned the words about Christ that we have come to know as his gospel. And in the quote above we see his priority, that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.
That was John’s bottom line (and the Holy Spirit’s bottom line as well) That we would know Jesus, trust and depend upon Him, and thereby receive the life He desires us to have. A life lived with Him, a life lived in His presence.
This is Jesus greatest investment, as He invests in us…
And while it is the time I invest in this, what I really invest is my brokenness. The struggle I have with sin, (especially when I don’t struggle with it) the guilt and shame, the hurts and pains, the resentment, the fear, and anxiety.
Those are my investments, the things I have to learn to zealously invest them into my relationship with Jesus, the return on investment is rest from them, a rest in the glory of God, a rest that comes from knowing I am loved.
He heals us, in ways beyond our hearts’ imagination, because the brokenness He will heal goes deeper into our soul than we are willing to explore. But that is what St. Josemaria is talking about when he tells us to have zeal for the affairs of our soul, for our internal lives. Letting God sink deeper into our lives that butter sinks into a hot waffle. It is scary and wonderful, What we need to invest… is the stuff that kills off our life. It is the stuff we need to be removed from our lives, and Jesus will…. with great joy and care… cut it away. ( See Colossians 2:11)
That is when our faith is living and working, when we allow God to deal with our brokenness, all of it, as He forgives our sins and cleanses us of all unrighteousness, and we can live….
And be sent out, for we are broken people who are finding hope and healing in Jesus, and helping others heal….
Lord have mercy on us, and help us invest our brokenness in your mercy and love… and heal us, dear Lord!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 820-824). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Pastors and Ministers: Do We Care About the Return on Our Investment of Time, Talent, Treasure?
Devotional Thought of The Day:
6 I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ASV)
215 The ploughshare that breaks up the earth and opens up the furrow sees neither the seed nor the harvest. (1)
In Business, often you make decisions based on a data that provides a potential “ROI”. Te acronym means, “return on investment”. Here is a quick summary.
You only have the resources to fund one project, and you have to decide between..
Project A – you invest 1 million, and the result in you make 50,000 in profit, pretty much guaranteed.
Project B – you invest one million, and you have a 50-50 chance of returning 500,000.
Your decision is a matter of risk versus the return you get for the investment. Some would apply this kind of idea to the ministry, where do we plant churches, which direction do we lead the church, how do we decide about staff people. It even is applied to our daily priorities, which things will I do today, that will build the kingdom? Who will I invest my time in, who will I pass off to to others. What will be my best ROI as a pastor? Do we use such thoughts to justify why we don’t talk to this person, or don’t try that in ministry. Either the ROI is to minimal, or the risk is too great? We can’t spread ourselves that thin, or we have to concentrate strongly on this or that. We use concepts from time management and strategic planning.
I started thinking about this last night – and the challenge my own congregation has in reaching out. I started thinking about my first congregation and its growth, which was significant given its size. It wasn’t were I planned to “invest” that provided the growth. In fact, it was what I had to do besides being a pastor that resulted in growth. First, my work as a part-time instructor at a college, and as a hospice chaplain. Neither was supposed to be something I was doing to help our church grow, but that’s what happened.
If we are honest, all of our statistical analysis and projected ROI’s don’t mean diddly squat when it comes to the world of the Holy Spirit. We don’t know if the nurse watching us minister to the person with alzheimer’s or in a coma will have seeds planted that will result in their baptism. We don’t know that the student we failed in a class will later come by the office to apologize, and then reveal struggles that only God can heal. We don’t know if the person who watched us grab someone’s check at a restaurant will ask why we did such a thing, and find our about God’s love. Or the person we smiled at in the checkout line at Walmart needed some encouragement on a very hard day.
We don’t know when God is using us to break through a hard heart, or plant the seed of His love. We might not ever know. That kind of investment cannot be quantified, it cannot be studied, it cannot be controlled and reproduced. That present to many of us a problem.
We’ve been trained since birth, to look for results, We’ve been trained to do things in a way that can be evaluated by criteria, we’ve been instructed to get the best grade, to aim for successful goals, to describe our mission in life with quantitative elements.
And evangelism, as St.Paul points out, isn’t so easy to see the results of, because it is a matter of teamwork. It is the Holy Spirit working through all of us, not just one or two. It is as Fr. Josemaria indicates, often we have no clue of the harvest we’ve been working towards, because that is not our role. We’re aren’t the owner of the field, or the foreman. We have our vocations, our gifts, and we follow His lead. It’s unnerving. especially as we invest and invest and invest in some people. Being the plow blade that breaks up hardened ground, or hardened hearts is a tough job…. and it is made only tougher because we do not know the result. Yet it is a necessary job, this work where the Holy Spirits works through us.
What gets us trough? What eases our frustration our doubt that what we invest will have some positive return? What helps us to keep going?
Knowing the heart of God. Realizing that is desire is that non one should perish, but all come to know the transformation to everlasting life. Knowing is promises, how He sustained Jeremiah, how he called Paul, how e worked through Peter. Those live serve as a legacy, a testimony to us who in this generation serve……
Not knowing the gruit of our labors, but assured He does…..
Lord Have mercy on us, in this amazing, complex, frustrating, ministry of reconciling the world to You….and increase our trust in You!
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(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). Furrow (Kindle Locations 1107-1108). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
