SAFE INVESTMENT

Matthew 6:19-24
19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

The Kennedy family has likely been the most photographed family in America, and the late Jacques Lowe was their most favored photographer. Many of the images he captured are intricately woven into Kennedy history.

Lowe, who died in May 2001, guarded the valuable negatives of his famous photographs with great care. Stored in a fireproof bank vault, he never allowed anyone else to enter the vault. If a media publication, a museum, or any other organization wanted prints, he would go and take care of it himself.

On a day when tragedy struck the United States, however, the family of Jacques Lowe was doubly devastated. All of his negatives were still locked up in a vault at a bank in the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, the 40,000 images, valued at more than $2 million were lost. No one could have imagined that Lowe's treasures were not safe.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was proclaiming a new reality, a new order, a new kind of treasure. He was painting a picture of what it looks like for a bit of heaven to come to earth, an image to help us live now in light of the day when Jesus sets all things right. In this future gaze, the present is transformed and there are breakthroughs of the kingdom of God in human time and space.

It is interesting that in the center of this heady discourse, Jesus dealt with the issues of money and greed. Nothing forces our hand on what we believe about the convergence of the temporal and the eternal like money. How we spend and how we give show what we are living for, and whom we are living for.

Selfishly absorbed by our present circumstances, we might think our lack of generosity to God's kingdom is just a case of playing it safe. We know, after all, what we get when we use all our resources on ourselves . . . now.

Jesus suggests otherwise. The only safe investment is the one that is made for kingdom purposes. --Winn Collier

DESTINATION POINTS

* What does my use of money show about whom or what I worship?
* How could I invest wisely--giving more away to God's kingdom purposes?

LINKS
J.F.K.--The Unseen Photographs

Photographs of John F. Kennedy

Integrating Biblical Faith and Finances

bottom line: Greed will ruin your eternal investments.

soul journey