ROI – Maximum Yield
For many people from stock brokers to business owners the three letters ROI are very important. ROI is the abbreviation for the financial term Return on Investment. According to Investopedia.com, ROI measures the amount of return on an investment relative to the investment’s cost. In other words ROI is an equation that helps predict the profitability of an investment. Why is this concept important for Christians? It is important because God, the Eternally Divine Investor, invested in each one of us and is expecting to get some return/profit from His investment. I don’t know what you have been through in your life, or what things are like for you right now, but I just want to inform you that divine deposits have been put in the account of your life and while you are here on earth in this life you have an opportunity to multiply and reinvest what God has already given you to the glory of His name.
This is not about attempting to earn salvation through good works or attempting to earn holiness an intimacy with God through righteous deeds. This is about what you choose to do with the life, gifts, talents, and knowledge that you have while you are here. Is this really important? Yes! It is important because as Christians we have received so much from God by His generous giving of His Son Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16. In Christ we have freedom, healing, eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and the penalty of sin- which is death has been paid on our behalf. All of these benefits that God has given us through Christ are yes and amen just by us accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. So we do not have to work for those benefits. However, we have been commissioned to build God’s Kingdom and to spread the “good news” about Jesus Christ. In building the Kingdom of God and spreading the good news is the opportunity to serve and use all of the gifts, talents, knowledge, and skills that we have.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” – James 1:17. When a person decides to invest in a business, project, or cause it is because they believe and are confident in what they are investing in. Also, when someone invests, they give something of value, something that is of worth to all parties involved. So God not only gave us His most precious asset (Jesus Christ), to redeem us from the bondage of sin, but He had confidence that who He was investing into was worth such a sacrifice. God thinks you are worth giving everything He has to be in your life. What He placed in you before the foundations of the earth is uniquely designed that will impact the earth for His will to be done here as it is in heaven, and as you use what He gave you it will attract honor and glory to His name.
In the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, the master gives his servants each a different amount of talents to manage while he is away. When the master returns he meets with his servants to find out how they invested the money that he entrusted to them. Two of the three servants give a good report and were rewarded, sharing that they were able to grow the money that they were entrusted with. The third servant did not invest the money at all and was reprimanded by the master. This parable explains that there is an expectation of doing something good with the gifts, talents, and skills that He has blessed us with. God wants a return on His investment. What does this mean for you? This means that we are responsible to find out what our gifts and talents are and use them for the building of His Kingdom, the edifying of the body of Christ, and to reveal His glory in the earth. We are alive and living where we are, in the communities we are in, and attracted to the things that we like for a reason. It is our job to seek God for His will for our lives. We want to be people who use all of what He has blessed us with so that He can get the maximum yield on His investment in us. The 1st servant in the parable of the talents multiplied his 5 talents into 10. This is an example of what maximum yield looks like. We have the opportunity to use all that God has given us to glorify and bless Him. Maximum yield from our gifts, talents, and skills being used to glorify God will change us, our environment, and attract other people to Him, and the result of all of that is Heaven on earth – God’s will being done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Let us pray: Father God thank You for another day, another opportunity to live for and with You. Lord thank You for our family, friends, loved ones, and all of the people that you have placed us in the midst of. Lord thank You for being our Creator, Designer, Investor, Architect, and the Master Strategist for our lives. Lord You are the Source in which everything we need is provided, You are the inspiration and joy that makes life worth living. Lord right now we acknowledge that You have invested in our lives before the foundations of the world and that You have in mind the best plan to for us to live into Your design. Lord thank You for the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Help us to live in a way that You can get the maximum yield from our lives. Lord activate in us gifts, talents, skills, understanding, wisdom, knowledge, and the grace we need to be all that You had in mind. Lord help us to encourage others to live for You as well. Lord let us be vessels that You can use, dump out of us what is not like You and please refill us with Your Holy presence. Lord let us not pursue worthless things, but desire Your plans and will to be done in our lives. Lord thank You for transforming us from glory to glory and from faith to faith. Lord we will not try to figure out how all of this will happen, but we will trust in You to bring it to pass. We thank You for all of these things in Jesus Mighty Name amen!
Blessings Always,
Dionne Renae
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Lessons 'n Blessings 