Volume 4, Issue 4, February 1996

WE MAY EXTEND OUR SPIRITUAL ASSETS

The marketplace and fashion entice us in countless ways to indulge our individual pleasures and to invest in material assets. Being poor certainly limits ones options, but investing all of our life in material wealth is not a guarantee of happiness or of real success. There are other riches that can be more precious.

As a self-appointed leader of the fledgling Christian church, St. Paul sometimes was given gifts of money. In his Letter to the Christians at Philippi, Paul thanked them for a monetary gift, but went on to say, "It is not the money I am anxious for; what I am anxious for is the interest that accumulates in this way to your divine credit!"

The meaning to be taken is that from every generous gift the giver obtains more than the receiver by developing human sympathy and growth of character. God's bank in us pays good interest on all the spiritual investments we deposit there.

And like any bank, our religion, Christian or otherwise, invests spiritual resources, built upon the separate deposits of the good we contribute. We are enabled then to draw upon this bank of moral and spiritual goodness and find pleasure in moral wholeness and healthy relationships.

When one pursues the values of honesty, meekness, and service, greater rewards than monetory or material are ultimately ones invaluable compensation. As the Lebanonese philosopher, poet and prophet, Kahlil Gibran declared, "You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you most truly give." This is not to talk about ones principles, but to act them out.

We can only do this out of the interest accumulated in our bank of divine credit.

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed."
-James Montgomery

Prayer is love on its knees.

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"Religion NOW" is published in limited edition by the Rev. Ross E. Readhead, B.A., B.D., Certificate of Corrections, McMaster University, in the interest of furthering knowledge and participation in religion. Dialogue is invited and welcomed.