Profit and Loss

I've got a 401k that I've had for a number of years now.  I get quarterly reports that let me know how things are going.  It's pretty straight forward, either the market has done well and my profits are up or it hasn't and my profits are down.  Fortunately, I'm in  pretty good mutual fund and I haven't experienced what some other have - a really poor reading, where a loss is recorded.

Although, I have to say that has not always been the case.  Back in the early 80s, I put what little money I had and added monthly to the Minisers' Investment Corporation.  It was showing greart growth (25%) until it hit a bit of a dowaward trend as the CEO headed south with all the funds.  He was caught and some of the money reclaimed but after the lawyers got their share and the creditors got their allotment, there was nothing left for me.

Except there was some profit in what appeared to  be a total loss.  I gained a great appreciation for the addage, "If itt seems to good to be true, it probably its."  That lesson early on has kept me from making that mistake later in life (like now) when it would have been much more hurtful.  I also learned  that adding a Christian name to a business does not mean the owners are truly Christian or that Christian owners are truly businessmen.  Both of those truths have served me well over the years.

Something else I've learned in life is that when a child of God  suffers loss but remains faithful, God can bring gain from it, that "God will work out for the good all things for those who love him" (Rom 8:28).  Often times, it is the loss itself that sets the gain in motion.  When I was asked to resign years ago, it set into motion the gears that would bring me to full-time employment with Arkansas Hospice, which provided the medical insurance my wife needed and has provided me a ministry outlet and job I love.  My loss turned out to be my profit.  And, I believe it has worked for the good of a lot of hospice patients down the years.

There is an even greater truth found in the profit and loss for a child of God: Loss in God's service is always profit and is the source of true riches.  "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jsus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.." (Phil 3:7-9).

The profit we make in this life is not ours to keep.  We can take none of it with us when we die.  On the other hand, What we gain in Christ's service is eternal, we do not leave it behind.  Therefore, as someone once said, "No man is a fool who risks what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  In Christ it is all profit and no loss.  Jus' Sayn.