Returns on Investment

Are you keeping an anxious eye on the stock market? Downturns in the Dow have Americans looking for ways to pinch pennies and make investments go farther. For those nearest retirement the stress is compounding faster than interest rates on an overdue credit card. Want to invest with a guaranteed rate of return?

There is one commodity over which we have complete investment control. That's time. We all get the same 86,400 seconds each and every day, and what we choose to do with them is - arguably - up to us. Measuring that, and keeping true to our investment "aims" is a challenge, admittedly. The Psalmist said, "Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart." In other words, God, help us to invest our time so that we get a good return on our investment.

I know that you have multiple priorities competing for your time daily, but I encourage you to stop and evaluate where you are spending those precious seconds and put your first priorities first. If you have a child there are typically 18 trips around the sun with him or her in your home. If you live to be an average age, you have roughly 70 or 80 such trips of your own. That's really not a lot of time in those terms. What I can guarantee you is that your investment of time in the people who are your "blue chip" stocks will have an unimaginably high rate of return.

Twenty trips around the sun ago, some Filipino Christians in Houston got together and formed a church, now known as First Philippine Baptist Church. People poured love, time, energy, money, labor, prayer, and faithfulness into the church, and now nearly 200 people in Houston call this church "home." That's a strong rate of return on investment! This Sunday that church will worship with our church and thank God for 20 years of ministry excellence. For one generation, God has been the dwelling place of these faithful people, and "from everlasting to everlasting" God has been faithful to them.

Join us on Sunday if you're in Houston. You'll hear a sermon about how we can redeem our investment of time in such a way that our labors yield and eternal results, and celebrate the First Philippine Baptist Church's first 20 years.

Putting Time in a Bottle,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon - Just a Thought is a weekly email by me, Gary Long. I'm the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church and I post other writing on my blog entitled To the Lees.