A Different Kind of Stock Market

I am involved in the middle school ministry called CHAOS (Christ Has All Our Solutions) on Wednesday nights at Orchard Hill Church in Grundy Center. Every week the leaders receive a devotion by email and this devotion came today. I wanted to share it with you.

By: Greg Stier

The situation is serious. Many IRAs are shrinking. People are losing their homes, their jobs...everything. And it could get worse before it gets better. Some people are talking recession. A few are even alluding to the "D" word, the great "D" word.Let's be honest.

It is a scary time right now, especially if your used to the American way of $ life.

Okay let me change the subject. Have you ever met a truly impoverished Christian in a 3rd world country? I have met several from India to El Salvador. It's hard for me to remember one of them that seemed truly sad. There they were in their barely-scrape-by daily lives with huge smiles on their faces. Dirt floors in their one room huts...huge smiles. One or maybe two "meals" per day...smiles. No Wii, cars, designer clothes or thriving 401 Ks...smiles.

What in the world were they smiling about? Maybe what many of the Old Testament saints were smiling about, check out Hebrews 11:13-16:
"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

If you are a believer in Christ you can smile when this side of eternity falls apart because you are saving up riches in a different country...a heavenly one. And in this heavenly country the stock market can never crash. Here's what Jesus said about it in Matthew 6:19-21:
"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."

Let's invest our treasure in the stock market that can never crash. Then let's smile, knowing our investment is safe!