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.

Whenever I meet somebody and they greet me by asking, “How are you?” my reply is, “So far, so good.” If I am waiting to see a doctor or a dentist, when someone asks me how I am as they usher me into a room, I say, “So far, so good, but maybe you are going to try and change that.”

I guess the equivalent Christian reply to the question “How are you?” would be “Grace has brought me safe thus far,” as John Newton phrased it in a verse of his hymn Amazing Grace.

A verse from ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ found in Psalm 23:6 puts it yet another way. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

Proverbs 3:5-8 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, and refreshment to your bones.”

The only reason Christians can even begin to proclaim ‘so far, so good’ is because of God’s unfailing grace and mercy toward us, through His Son, Jesus, who redeemed our sins and made us righteous with God the Father, if we only believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. God gave Jesus to humanity as an atoning sacrifice (Romans 3:25). By means of Jesus’ death on the crucifixion cross, the shedding of Jesus’ blood for us, and Jesus’ subsequent resurrection from the dead three days later, Jesus became the one and only possible Savior of our sins against God, and by faith in Jesus Christ we have eternal life.

On Easter Sunday each year, Christians joyously celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, His victory over death, and what that means for all of us.

We can rely on God’s protection from day to day as we go about our life.

“Take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness arrayed, and with your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And put on the helmet of salvation and take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:13-17).

“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—whom shall I dread?” (Psalm 27:1)

Through God’s ongoing provisions for us, we need not be discouraged by our daily ‘bummer’ set of circumstances, which try to dampen our spirits, but we can persevere through faith in God. Daily circumstances need not ruin or change our overall outlook on life as we go about our day.

“We can rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us” (Romans 5:3-5).

We cannot avoid having some bad days. But on those infrequent or frequent occasions when either our flesh fails us, or the world comes down hard on us, or Satan attacks us, we can still be victorious through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit working in us so that at the end of each day we can still say to others ‘so far, so good.’

“Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken” (Psalms 55:22).

Not even during those periodic visits to doctors and dentists, a volatile stock market, governmental issues, world concerns, etc., which always have the potential to result in some temporary or even long-term bad news. God will even spare Christians from the terrible Great Tribulation period, through a pre-trib Rapture!

We should not be overly short-sighted and concerned about what will happen in our lives tomorrow, and where we will be tomorrow, but rather we need to be long-sighted and concerned about where we will be in 50, 100, or 500 years from now and beyond, as we spend eternity either with Jesus in heaven, or separated from Jesus in a place you don’t want to go!

I pray you will reach a point in your life when, no matter what is happening in your life, you can say, “So far, so good.” Grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home! Amen!

The following is a short prayer poem I composed for myself to help me get my heart straight and my mind properly focused on what is truly important in this life at the start of a new day.

I praise you, Jesus, first thing every morning.
I praise you, God, all throughout each day.
I praise you for Your grace and Your mercy,
and all Your blessings, each, and every day.