The Great Spendthrift

“He wasted his substance…he spent all.” Luke 15:13-14

How did he waste his substance?  By spending all and investing nothing!

All of life is not meant for investment.  The very fact that we have earthly bodies and live upon the earth is sufficient to indicate that there are some purely earthly activities proper to engage in.  True, we are meant to live like spiritual men, but God has not called upon us in our present state of existence to live like glorified men.  And while the lower must always submit to the higher in the Christian life, earthly activities are to be sanctified rather than wholly eliminated.

It is the devil’s lie that Christians have no earthly joys.  Because their pleasures are divinely guided, and sanctioned, Christians receive more enjoyment out of life.  For them spending is pleasing and sometimes proper.  Some time, some energy, and some skill can afford to be spent.  For if some of life is not spent, the whole of life becomes anemic and even spiritual efforts may be misdirected.

But it is a great tragedy to “spend all.”  Spending, even when it is proper, can only benefit us at the present time and in the present circumstance.  So life must have its investment, for investment looks toward providing for the future.  Here are some suggested investments.

Invest in health.  The spending of today must not exhaust all the resources for tomorrow.  One cannot empty the cup today and have something left to quaff tomorrow.  To young people of all generations has come the temptation to drain all the pleasures out of life in one riotous day, or week, or year.  For the moment the desire to live and enjoy the future is suppressed.  This is Satan’s supreme moment of trial for many—but it may be, yes, it must be, overcome.  Though it is wondrously true that life tends to restore spent health, yet it also remains a fact that when health is overspent the health-making machine is damaged.  Invest today, therefore, in practices and habits that normally insure health tomorrow.

Invest in financial security.  It is the glory of the Christian faith that its grace is equally available to the rich and the poor, and that the poor may be rich in faith.  But it is not saintliness to be content to be improvident and live on poverty lane when ambition and effort can take one higher.  Investment here as elsewhere takes time, patience, and effort.  It is not sinful to aim for a better wage, provided you are becoming a better workman.  Neither is it wrong to provide security for the years to come.  Faithful stewardship in earthly things, not poverty, is the mark of a good Christian.

Invest in friendships.  Don’t try to live alone and like it!  (This is speaking in terms of general relationships, of course.)  Have good friends and take care to keep them.  Refuse to be numbered among those who hold friendship in light esteem.  In the untried tomorrow friends can render valuable counsel and support.

Invest in varied knowledge and interest.  Refuse to be a one-track individual.  Though you may be superior in one field only, cultivate personal interests in other fields.  This is one way to enrich and extend life. Constructive hobbies are proper trends in this direction.

Above all else, invest in spiritual things.  To do this is not simply to prepare for heaven (though it will certainly result in that), but it is also necessary to inject the finer spiritual quality into all earthly life.  Living the spiritual life will mean escape from the crass materialism and disappointing dreams of a worldly life.  “Exercise unto godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and also that which is to come.”  It is profoundly true that men cannot live by bread alone, either individually or corporately.  When spiritual values are ignored or trampled upon, chaos reigns in human society.  Apart from spiritual values life has missed its proper consummation and crown.

This prodigal “wasted his substance.”  He could afford to spend the interest but he could not afford to spend the principal.  Yet this is exactly what he did.  Life, health, money, and opportunity he spent as though he had an endless supply.  When finally he had exhausted the principal he was poor indeed, with nothing left to invest.  At the end of this road of waste is the sign,  “He began to be in want.”  Yes, want and deprivation follow waste.  It is as true of life as it is of money.

To this prodigal there were two ways open:  the way out (the suicide route) or the way back (the path of repentance).  He chose the latter.  No person can become a Christian unless he ceases the spendthrift course of sinning; that the spendthrift course of sinning; that brings moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

Let us be advised to make the Great Investment:  “Sell that thou hast, give, and follow ME; thou shalt have treasure in heaven.”  The reward of such investment is great and the security is ample.

--George E Failing