Profit or Loss?
May I ask you a question?
What is the main thing that motivates you in life? What captivates most of your time? What uses most of your money? What do you desire more than anything else?
I have been thinking about these questions a lot lately. I have been captivated by a short section of scripture in the book of Mark. Jesus says in Mark 8:36-37.
“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?”
Someone in the church asked me some time back why should I be a Christian today? Why not wait and live my life any way I want and come to Christ later after I have done my living.
First, you are gambling with your soul. You have no idea what could happen to you even today. Secondly, you yourself may be saved but your life would be a waste—a loss, unprofitable. You may say why? Let me explain.
I have studied and taught accounting for over a decade. I am well acquainted with profits and losses. I have a Ph.D. in business, teach accounting at a top university and serve as a consultant to national organizations. But one thing I have learned about my study of business is that it can also give great insight into the soul.
Many people have a chief goal in life of acquiring profits– riches. Take Solomon for example. He was one of the richest men that ever lived—thousands of stables, glorious palaces, everything a man could ever want in this world. But he could not buy happiness and in the end he declared it all vanity (see Ecclesiastes). Study throughout time from the ancient Romans, the medieval kings, to the Railroad barons, the captains of steel, oil, and gas to the traders on Wall Street. I have studied the Enron fraud in detail. Men who had millions but it was never enough. The wealth was but a short season in their life and in the wake follows death and destruction. Madoff enjoyed his millions but is now in prison. I still wonder about the everyday people who make the love and pursuit of money their primary motivation in life.
Is money your main motivation in life?
Maybe you seek something else more than money. You want to be successful and reach your wildest dreams. There was a young man who when he could barely walk took up the game of golf and made it his chief desire in life. He sacrificed day after day, year after year, to ultimately be the greatest golfer in the world. To be loved by millions. As a bonus he also became the most profitable athlete ever as well as having a beautiful wife and kids. Yet that dream can quickly become a nightmare as circumstances change amazingly fast in this world.
Beyond this world and how money, fame, power and glory can disappear think about the world to come. What will it profit a man in the day of judgment, if he has gained the whole world? Suppose that man comes before Almighty God, the maker of the Heavens and the Universe, and says don’t you know me. I was powerful. I was rich. I was famous. I was successful.
There will be no profit to man, in all he has achieved, when he comes before God’s judgment.
The soul is worth more than all the wealth in all the world! For all that wealth could not buy a soul. The soul is made in the image of its Maker. The soul is eternal like God. In fact, the human soul is worth more than all the profits in all the world. Why? Because of the price Christ paid for it. Not with gold or any money of this world but with His own flesh and blood He redeems the souls of those who accept Him as Savior.
