Things that Profit

As I was casually grazing through the scriptures today I came across a scripture that stuck out to me as though it was in bold print. The scripture says in Jeremiah 2:8 The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Although there is a lot going on in this passage of scripture, the thing that leaped out to me is how God categorized what these prophets were doing was that they were making investments into things that do not profit. How many times does it appear that we strive to make investments into things only for them to turn out in the end not producing profit. Although we understand the principle of investment and return in the monetary realm, it is a principle which holds true in every area of life.

Think about the things that you do on a daily basis. Do you spend a good amount of time throughout your day making investments into something, or do you spend an inordinate amount of time making withdrawals. Take it even a step further, are the investments that you feel you are making being placed into things that will profit? Sometimes it is difficult to measure our profit, we have a tendency to look at the now rather than the eternal to gauge our profit, but in God's economy the eternal far outweighs the temporary.

It would be good for us to take inventory periodically over some critical areas in our lives to see if we are investing into things that will profit or if we are chasing ideas that will not produce positive results in our lives, or even worse, that these things we are investing in will lead us away from God, as in the case in the scripture that we read.

As a spouse am I taking the time to listen and respond to the needs of my spouse. Are there healthy deposits being placed into my marriage. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take time out to go on a date with your wife, because without a healthy marriage your ministry will suffer long term.

As a parent do I lose my temper in the frustrating moments, not realizing that those are moments that make a withdrawal out of our children's emotional piggy bank. It is not the large gifts and the amount of money that is spent on a child that bring about profits in your children, but it is in those consistent moments of time spent together throughout the years of their growing from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

As a minister, am I spending all of my time trying to produce results and fix things, constantly working, but never feeling as though I am achieving? The true things that will bring profit to any child of God are time spent with Him. It is seasons of prayer and times of solitude with Him that will ultimately produce ministerial profit.

As we begin to consider the actions that we take on a daily basis under the thought of eternal profit, it would amaze us how much in life produces anger, frustration, resentment and jealousy, yet they are things that will not produce eternal profit. Lord, help us to focus on investing into those things that produce eternal profit!