The chattering classes are swooning these days over the meteoric rise of stocks and crypto, and talking about improving all eleven sectors of the economy, a system that groups all businesses into categories to aid investors in balancing their portfolios.
Full disclosure: I’m neither an economist nor a businessman. I’m certainly not an investor, at least in the traditional sense. Which reminds me…
Years ago, I was in Washington, DC, working on our family becoming legal residents, and doing research at the INS Reading Room, as it was called then.
At lunchtime, I had been invited to lead a Bible study at the World Bank across town, where a friend worked.
Standing at the curb to hail a taxi, I sent a prayer heavenward to ask if the Lord could arrange for me to have a driver interested in spiritual things.
Two cabs flew by. The third pulled up to the curb. As soon as I climbed in, the handsome, swarthy driver asked, “Where to?” I explained I needed a ride to the World Bank.
“You an economist?” Faisal queried.
“Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean by that?” he replied.
“I tell people how to make investments which they can never lose.”
“Really?”
“Yes, they don’t even lose them when they die.”
“You’re kidding me!” Not by accident, Faisal was an international student studying economics!
I began to explain how each person had racked up an unimaginable debt through our sins, our base ingratitude for heaven’s blessings, and the squandering of our God-given resources on trivial living. Even trying to do good, we had to use more resources—time, energy, conscious thought, and earthly blessings—which are all from God, and this puts us into even greater debt.
“But God has sent His Son and Heir, the richest person in the universe, to give His life as a ransom at Calvary to pay this astronomical debt.
“In order to do this, ‘for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.’ (2 Corinthians 8:9)
“You only have one thing to give Him that’s all your own, my friend. The Lord says, ‘Give Me your heart.’
“Now listen to this! When we receive God’s free gift of salvation, He additionally blesses us ‘with every spiritual blessing…in Christ.’ (Ephesians 1:3)
“Jesus said, ‘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.’ (Matthew 6:19-20, BSB) Isn’t that amazing?
By inviting people like you, Faisal, to come with us to heaven, it makes the future richer for us all.”
Faisal had been writing furiously on a little pad at each stop light. Then he asked, “Do you have a Bible to give me, and some literature to explain this? I’ve been asking many people who say they are Christian, ‘What is this Christianity?’ No one has been able to explain.”
Arriving at my destination, I gave him a Bible and some literature, encouraging him to begin in John’s Gospel. Reluctantly, I headed for my study.
As I entered the door, I looked back to the corner. Faisal, sitting in his cab, was reading his new Bible, looking to invest in the twelfth sector— “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8).
The best sector by far.
Article by Jabe Nicholson first published in the Commercial Dispatch, Saturday, December 14, 2024.