As I was getting ready this morning, as I tend to do, I was talking to God. As I was, this word kept coming to mind “diminishing returns.” Odd, I thought, as this is an investment term, which basically points out that you only get so much from something you invest in before you lose, or even gain no profit from it. That is the lie of Satan, though, isn’t it? He promises us freedom FROM God, but we really end up becoming slaves to our passions, which, ultimately, destroy us. Consider what the Psalmist has to say about this: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:4-8)
What is an idol, but a work of our own hands that we worship? And talk about diminishing returns! They have bodies that do not function, and those who make them become like them! They become, as the Psalmist says, deaf, mute and lame…DEAD. And in Ephesians, we’re reminded that, in our trespasses and sins, we’re dead (Ephesians 2:1).
What are you investing in that is diminishing you? Is it a job, a relationship, a house, a boat, a car, or any thing that has no bearing on eternity? None of these things are evil in and of themselves: they’re objects we make, they have no intrinsic good or evil about them. Yet, when we invest in things that have no bearing on eternity, we become smaller than we were created to be. If our reward is Christ, and all of our faith and hope are poured in to Him, we are raised up, and such investments only grow, even in to eternity! What are you pouring your life in to? Anything of this world will leave you broke at the end. Come and taste and see that the Lord is good, and He will give you increase that transcends this life!
Habakkuk 2:18-20
“What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
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