Investment and Inheritance
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (KJV, emphasis added)
There is a story about a janitor who took the idiom “cleaning up” to another level – financially, that is! This great-hearted, giving janitor led a very meager and self-imposed, monetarily simple life. When he traveled around the town of Brattleboro, Vermont, he settled behind the wheel of a second-hand Toyota. His exhilarating expression of personal entertainment was chopping wood. Finally, when the janitor died he left an astounding amount of money that surely shocked the citizens of his small community. He left $4.8 million to the local hospital and $1.2 million to Brattleboro’s Brooks Memorial Library. The explanation behind the janitor’s enormous endowment was his persistent prudence in stock investments that totaled $8 million by the time he died.
I invite you now to consider with me two terms that will develop spiritual understanding and deposit some spiritual truth to our souls and service to the Lord.
Investment: An act of devoting time of effort or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a rewarding result
Inherit: To receive the portion assigned to one, receive an allotted portion, receive as one's own or as a possession
In a Biblical sense, investment and Inheriting is also identified as sowing and reaping.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8 (KJV)
The word “soweth” refers to investment and the word “reap” refers to our inheritance. The word “reward” refers to either eternal life or eternal death.
First Corinthians 6:9 tells us that the wicked will have no share in God’s future kingdom because they are not connected to a relationship with Christ.
“He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 3:11-13 (KJV)
According to our text, the consequences of investing in the flesh will never give you the return of inheritance that God intends for His children. However, evidence that you are a child of God is inseparable from what you invest in (a God-centered and God-glorifying life). As a child of God, your Father has an inheritance for you that eternally exceeds anything earth has to offer.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:3-5 (KJV)
Faith-filled people invest in the things of God and look forward to a fantastic future with our Father forever!
For the Glory of God,
PBKSR