The Wall Street NYSE has been in the news a lot lately regarding the fluctuating value of stocks during the current tariff war being waged. My blood pressure does not fluctuate with the up and down trading on the New York Stock Exchange because I do not have any monetary stock and bond investments, and thus I do not lose any sleep about what is happening on Wall Street.
I have a different take on the terminology of stocks and bonds. My investments are taking stock in what my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has to say to me in His Word, the Bible, enabling my bond with Him to grow exponentially stronger moving forward as my earthly days roll along.
An investment in Jesus Christ has a guaranteed forecast of a long-term profitable increase throughout eternity to come. Who would want to trade a worry-free, eternal, secure investment in Jesus Christ versus tossing and turning in bed, losing sleep over worry about short-term monetary transactions that last only a few decades at best, during a brief earthly lifetime?
The Bible has much to say about wealth and words of wisdom concerning money, profit, and loss.
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
“Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to restrain yourself” (Proverbs 23:4).
“Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
“Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:9-10).
“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” (Matthew 6:24).
“He who loves money is never satisfied by money, and he who loves wealth is never satisfied by income. This too is futile” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
These verses are a small sampling of what the Bible has to say about monetary matters. Since Biblical times, King Solomon, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus Christ himself left us words of wisdom about money in the Bible, which have served every generation well, including our own generation today. Perhaps these words of wisdom have never needed to be heard more than in the current times we live in, as we seem to find ourselves near, or in, the ‘end times’ just preceding the Rapture of the Church (Christians) from the earth.
That means the time is shorter than ever for you to decide if YOU will serve mammon (money) or God in this life. There is nothing wrong with having money, or even being rich, if you use it for good in promoting the Kingdom of God here on earth. It is the ‘love of money’ that will get you in trouble. How you use the money God has blessed you with may be a major determining factor in where you spend eternity, either with Jesus Christ in heaven or separated from Jesus forever via the judgment of the unrighteous.
You can be a billionaire philanthropist and give away millions or billions to good causes, but it will not punch your ticket to eternal life with Jesus in heaven. You must put ‘stock’ in Jesus Christ to obtain eternal life. If you give your life to Jesus and believe in Him, then Jesus will create a ‘bond’ between you and God the Father. Now, that is the kind of stocks and bonds we should be excited about investing in for long-term, never-ending benefits, with the indicator arrow always pointing up toward heaven until we hear the closing bell of our life on earth.
Jesus, God’s one and only Son, was God’s blood sacrifice on our behalf, the one and only sacrifice sufficient to make us righteous with God the Father. Jesus suffered and died for us to redeem us of all our past, present, and future sins.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Every Easter, Christians joyously celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead so that when we die, we will be raised from the dead in our resurrected bodies, fit to join Jesus in God’s Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity, just as the Bible promises us will happen, and the Bible has kept ALL its promises. Of course, there is the possibility of the Rapture happening at any time before we die, which means we will be blessed to meet the Lord in the air instead.