My good friend Tony Cimmarrusti has two degrees from Harvard, a Wall Street background, and over 20 years of hedge fund experience. But most importantly, he loves Jesus with all his heart, and is one of the most generous people I know.
I greatly appreciate Tony’s message in this short video (and the edited transcript that follows), which is a challenge for all of us to live with an eternal perspective about the resources God gives us to manage:
Christianity is both reasonable and logical. But there’s not enough logic and not enough reason for anyone to believe it on our own—it’s a miracle of the Holy Spirit when that happens. Similarly, I think that for people who have fallen under the trance of the love of money and don’t even know it, it’s also a miracle when they break that power. It only happens by a spiritual transaction, and by God helping them pry their fingers off of whatever it is they’re latched onto. It’s with the Holy Spirit’s help.
What does my life stand for? What if my life ends tonight, and I stand before God, and God says to me, “Why should I give you Heaven?” I know what I would say: “Because your Son died for my sins. He was my Savior and my Lord. And you promised me that you would prepare a place for me. And He promised that to me, and that He was going to come back and take me to be there. So here I am.”
Now, the next thing that He’s going to ask is, “Okay, so what did you do with what I gave you on Earth?” And, wow, that’s going to be a tough exam. I know that it’s going to be filled with grace. And yet, when I stand before God, I don’t want to hand Him a bunch of stock certificates and think He’s going to say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
I want to be able to say, “Lord, this is what we did with what we had. You gave us five talents; here’s ten back.” We want to be in that number. The last thing we want to do is be the guy who had the talent and went and buried it.
Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with money, there’s something desperately wrong with devotion to money. “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:9-10, CSB).
As Tony says, we all need God’s help to escape from the clutches of materialism and money-love so that we can find freedom and discover the lasting joy of true, eternal riches.
Tony refers to the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), which shows that we’re each entrusted by God with different financial assets, gifts, and opportunities, and we’ll be held accountable to God for how we’ve invested them in this life. We’re to prepare for the Master’s return by enhancing the growth of His kingdom through wisely investing His assets. What a privilege that is. So let’s live to hear the Father’s “Well done!”
Copyright 2017, Eternal Perspective Ministries. All rights reserved.
