“3 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Set your affection on things above,
not on things on the earth. For ye are
dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
Every person on this
planet is an investor; in some way, shape, or forum. You may never own stock, put a single penny
in bonds, or even own a home; but make no mistake, you are an investor. If nothing else, we invest our time, our
reputation, ourselves; into this life.
Partly because we have to, and partly because we want to. The investment decisions are made by us.
Jesus Christ said: “Except
a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it
bring forth much fruit.” When Jesus
calls a man, he calls him to die (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). He calls him to a place of absolute and total
surrender of his will, and to total obedience to the will of Christ. The investment is not into this life, no, but
you invest in life. The life that Jesus
gives, life more abundant, a spiritual life with Jesus Christ; free from
carnality, from sin, from the unrighteousness that reigns within. What do we invest? We invest our all: all our plans, all our
wishes, all we are, all we have; this is the death, this is the faith and
obedience that Christ requires. We, each
one, have a choice; if we have nothing else, we have a choice of where we
invest. We can choose to trust in the
world, in the things of this world; we can chase after them, invest in them, and
believe in them. However, just like in
Noah’s day, those that chase after the world and unrighteousness will ultimately
find only death and destruction. I
imagine that Noah must have look pretty ridiculous to everyone around him when
he began building the ark. There he was,
day after day, year after year; investing his time, money, energy, reputation,
everything he had into building this ark.
The ark represented life to Noah, in a way he couldn’t even fully
understand, but he had faith in God and he obeyed God. He invested everything in God, while everyone
around him looked on and probably mocked him; scorned him, and drug is name
through the mud. He risked his future,
his children’s future, his wife probably had to endure the gossip and slander
as well; for after all she was married to “crazy old Noah”. Everyone around them was investing themselves
in the world, and Noah was investing himself in the creator of the world. It may have looked crazy to everyone who had
a “worldly” mindset, Noah may have seemed like a nut job……and then, it began to
rain.
It’s not always “cool” being a Christian, and it doesn’t always
make “sense” to people in the world.
However, when you live your life in faith and obedience towards Christ; when you invest your all in him and set your affections on things above it brings an
assurance and peace; an assurance that when it rains (because it is going to
rain) you know that the ark of safety is well prepared. There will come a time when it begins to
rain, by this I mean, there will come a time when everything that God says in
his Word about judgment, and hell, and death; that will happen. We are going to die. It IS going to rain. Noah invested his all in the ark and when he
got on board with his house and the animals, the Lord shut him in; whatever was on that boat represented all the
life that was on Earth. The faith and
obedience of one man brought salvation himself and his house. The faith and obedience of one man (Jesus
Christ) brought salvation to everyone on this earth, but we have to choose to
invest our all in the plan that He has laid out; for he is the mediator of the new testament. He is life and life more abundant.
