Our Lives – An Investment Opportunity?

Posted by Buck Jacobs on Feb 24th, 2010 | 1 comment home title

Wise Investments First, let’s establish that, as believers, each of our lives contains and represents an investment opportunity. We are each uniquely designed by our loving and infinitely creative Father to earn a very high return in His Kingdom. He is absolutely NOT unaware of our situation in this time and place. It is intentional on His part. He has designed us and planned for us to be here now. We weren’t supposed to be here 100 years ago or 19 years from now. Now is our time, this is our hour. He never makes mistakes.

And, we are here to do special things that He had in His mind before He even made the Earth. (Ephesians2:10) Ultimately how we understand and apply this truth will determine our success or failure as Christian people. So many are deceived to believe that God has us here to “enjoy” this life. This is a totally false paradigm. That there are joys and some enjoyment in this life is a reflection of God’s loving nature and His grace, but we are here to work. We are here to serve Him and to produce a return

The way it all works is this: If we live as God intends us to, He will provide all we need to sustain life in the place in the world He intends for us. This place, and by place we mean the combination of location, station, vocation, and reputation, is the place where our unique blend of gifting and calling will be maximally fruitful in His Kingdom, which means to produce the highest return. This place is our “eternal sweet-spot.” This place is where we are able to return the greatest measure on His investment in us. For each of us there is that one true place and what is exciting is that any of us can find it. God will not hide it and tease us; He wants us to be and to function in our eternal “sweet-spot” far more than we can imagine.

There are a couple of keys we need to mention: First, remember that we said that “IF we live as God wants us to live?” Well, that’s a big IF. We have to choose to do so. We can all do it but we all won’t. It will only happen as the result of a conscious choice. Not choosing to live as God wants us to live is the same as choosing not to. Choosing to live the way God wants us to live will mean that we choose not to live the way the world tells us to live. It means that we will choose to accept God’s values and priorities for our lives and reject those of the world. Only if we see life through the lens of an eternal perspective will we choose God and His way in life. A godly life will by definition be a counter-cultural life. Not all of us are or will be willing to make the choices that we are called to make in order to live as God wants us to.

Let’s go back now and talk about investment opportunity. Remember we have said that IF we live as God wants us to live that He will provide all we need to sustain us in that place which we have called our eternal sweet spot. That sweet spot can be anywhere. It can be found in the very highest places of society or the very lowest. Our sweet spot is, for us, the place where the highest return can be found. God will keep us there if we are willing. Remaining in the sweet spot requires no effort on our part in terms of provision, God will always provide all we need to do all He wants. Living in God’s sweet spot is His responsibility if we are willing to live there. Living anywhere else becomes our responsibility and that is where we find the stress and struggle in life. If we knowingly or unknowingly stray from our eternal sweet spot God is honor bound to try to guide us back into it. He has designed us to be nowhere else and, because of His love for us, will do all He can to encourage us back to our sweet spot if we move away from it. His correction is what the Bible calls chastening and it increases in intensity in proportion with our deviation from His highest and best for us. It manifests in an inner tension and the loss of the fruit of His Spirit in our lives. (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) Chastening is always designed to correct our orientation back to our sweet spot.

A biblical example of living in the sweet spot is found in the parables of the Minas in Luke and the Talents in Matthew. In both the returns that the faithful servants earned was measured and the servants with the highest return were commended. The master in the parables represents Jesus and we are the servants. In Luke Jesus used the mina to represent the equal opportunity we all are given to seek and live in our sweet spot. In Matthew our Lord used the talents to represent the different packages of gifts, talents, resources, and opportunities that we individually receive that are designed for creating the maximum return as we live in our eternal sweet spot. Both parables tell us that our Lord is extremely interested in the return He receives from His investment in us. His investment in us is death on the cross in our place. When He did that He invested Himself for us. Our investment opportunity begins with giving ourselves back to Him and it continues as we live for Him in the sweet spot that He has designed for us. As we live in the sweet spot we produce much fruit (His return on His investment) and prove to be His disciples. If we live out of the sweet spot our fruitfulness diminishes to the degree we err and His return is lowered.

If He chooses to give us excess to what we need to stay in our sweet spot we have the additional investment opportunity of releasing it to the use of His Kingdom. This is the kind of investment Jesus meant when He told us not to lay up treasures on Earth but to lay them up in heaven. In fact, the definition of mammon might be the excess of what we need to keep us in our eternal sweet spot. What we need to keep us in our sweet spot can be properly called sustenance; it isn’t mammon it is just utilitarian to God’s purpose in our lives. Jesus told us that we couldn’t love God and mammon. And if we define mammon as what we have been given beyond what we need to do all God asks the best thing that we can do with it is invest it in God’s business by releasing it to do Kingdom work. The returns are eternal when we do. Keeping for our own use that which God gives us in excess of what is required to live in our sweet spot is actually hoarding. When we hoard something we love it in a sense and we hoard it only because we don’t believe that God will give us enough more of it to sustain us or keep us where He wants us to be. (Hoarding should not be confused with appropriate savings that are a necessary part of out sweet spot.)

In light of all this we can see the tremendous need to know what our sweet spot is and to stay in it. Truthfully our eternal destiny depends on it. We have each been created by God to do specific and important things in very important and strategic places. When we live in those places and do those things we fulfill our eternal destiny and provide to our Father the highest return on His investment. This truly represents our investment opportunity and His.

If you are confused concerning your sweet spot or any of the concepts of this segment, the place to get clarity is in intimate questioning of God. Intimate questioning can only be a part of an intimate relationship so begin there. Ask Him. No wise person wants to experience a poor return or miss an investment opportunity.

Check yourself. In a quiet time ask yourself:

Is my investment opportunity being fully realized?
If your answer is yes, ask what you need to do to maintain or increase it
If your answer is no, begin a process of change by asking God why.

Are you living in or heading surely toward your eternal sweet spot?

If your answer is “Yes,” press on!
If your answer is “No” or “I don’t know” begin to ask God where it is and how to get there.

Is your relationship with God intimate enough for you to believe that you can truly answer these questions?

If your answer is “Yes”, press on and don’t let it slip!
If your answer is “No” or “I don’t know”, are you content to continue as is?
If your answer is “No” or “I don’t know”, what might you change that could change the answer?
When will you make the change?

One Response home title

Elton Crawford says:

December 2, 2010 at 2:40 AM

Our Lives – An Investment Opportunity?-
Buck Jacobs is an interesting name for a blog, keep up the good work, thanks, from Elton Crawford