Unless it is a carrier pigeon that is healthy with a note attached to its feet, saying, “I can fly, not you.”
Both Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton are correct, though one believes in the theory behind the facts, and the other believes in the law.
Both have effects. Both works.
How about the investment that has the Maximum, Optimum return?
It is defined as, “the highest achievable profit or benefit from an investment or business venture, considering all relevant factors and constraints.”
Optimum is the most favorable.
Maximum is the limit of achievement or gain. The return on the investment may take time, and it has its risks. Especially in business.
Spiritual investment never fails.
Of course, it depends on Who you are investing in, and what you are doing spiritually.
If you want to go to a mountain somewhere in Tibet and worship creation instead of the Creator, then have at it.
Maybe you will be enlightened and find some solace.
This is a bad investment, in my opinion.
Knowing Jesus Christ as your Master Chief Operating Officer, will allow you to have faith in what you are doing.
Will you always win?
Depends on what you deem to be winning.
Faith in Christ is not a game, or a race to the finish line.
However, there is an end to all things.
Winning can be confusing.
Winning is subjective.
What is winning?
Well, it is making Heaven your home and hearing, “Well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into your rest.”
Losing the race of life, means that you may have run to Heaven, but did not follow the LAWS and THEORIES of God Almighty, and found that your belief system was a false one.
There is always hope if you are alive.
Winning is not losing. Losing is not winning.
Death is real.
Life everlasting in Jesus Christ is also more than real. It is eternal.
Only one way to Heaven.
John 3:3.
Read it.
Maximum, Optimum return.
You are not owed anything from Jesus.
He does not owe you anything because of your investment in Him. He invested in you through His Blood, so you can partake of His death, and die to yourself.
His return on His investment is you and I when we repent and ask Him into our lives.
No more, no less.
“It is by His grace ye have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.”
Ephesians 2: 8-9
I spent all my younger years investing in the wrong companies.
The company I kept was not a business.
Unless you consider drug dealers a business.
I guess it is.
I was given, or fronted (handed this Dope with no money exchanging hands), a 2.2 Kilo of Marijuana from Mexico from my dealer.
Meaning that he gave me the Dope, with an amount of money he wanted back from my ability to sell this large quantity of Marijuana.
I sold it in ½ ounce baggies. This initially was 77.6 ounces of Marijuana.
An investment.
That 77.6 ounces, sold as ½ ounce baggies for $15.00 per baggie, equaled, when done, a total of $2,310.00 dollars.
All I had to do was give my dealer $500.00 cash (after I sold all that Dope.)
It might have taken a few days because I had people wanting it and stood in line in the parking lot of the arcade I hung out at. They lined up to my driver's window of my 1970 Ford Galaxy, and I walked away with a net profit of $1,800.00.
That was a bunch of money in 1973.
The problem was, I was greedy.
Of course I was. I was an addict.
NO deposit No return for my investment, or the dealer's investment.
I owed him money and never paid him.
Therefore, I was a hunted man by a very serious dealer.
He finally caught me, and I had to pay up, which I did.
Mainly on installments.
He trusted me repeatedly, and to his chagrin, he became distressed and embarrassed, feeling like a failure because he had a boss to answer to.
I let him down and he had to pay a price for my stupidity and selfishness.
One day, he fronted me another 2.2 Kilo of Dope, and when I left his house, I parked a block away with my headlights off.
I watched him leave his house, through the back door.
He would go out to the doghouse where his violent Doberman dog was, and move the doghouse over a bit, to expose a hidden, underground bunker where he hid the other pounds of Marijuana.
I watched him with my binoculars.
He put the 50 plus pounds of Marijuana in the hole in the ground. Moved the doghouse back on top of the bunker.
The watchdog was chained to the doghouse.
A protector of his investment.
When he drove away to his next appointment, I casually walked through his unlocked, chain-link fence to the backyard.
I walked up to the growling dog, shot the dog dead with my pistol, took all the Dope, loaded it into my trunk, and drove off.
This obviously worked, and he never knew it was me who did this.
He was never to be seen again as his “bosses” must have given him a ticket out of town.
Or a pair of cement shoes to wear in the nearest river.
I do not know the outcome; except I had to find another dealer who would trust me as an “investment.”
Maximum, Optimum return.
I maxed out, burning all the bridges with killers and thieves, and finally ended up paying for my theory of relativity which, in Einstein’s thoughts was, how speed affects space, time, and mass, and applies to situations without gravity.
My speed (Meth in my veins) did affect the space and time I had to spend in prison, which was a mass of confusion, applied without any gravity.
Except the gravity of my pain-filled, addicted situations.
I reaped what I had sown. It is God’s eternal law.
Psalm 90:12 declares, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Teach us, Lord.
I learned the hard way about life, death, investments, time, love, and heartache.
God never intended for me to become a mess.
He turned my mess into a message of hope, through the preaching of the Gospel.
He restored my life through the trials and tests I went through.
My tests turned into testimonies of His grace and love.
Only He can fix our issues.
There are many millions of people who never took the path I took.
The path of least resistance is just to serve God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Avoid the self-inflicted sorrows of life by trusting in Him during your storms.
Investments are here one day and gone the next.
Especially financial investments.
Thank God for wisdom in how to conduct successful business ventures. It is His money anyway, and He expects us to use His finances and blessings with wisdom in faith towards His abundance for every good work.
Besides this investment, our time spent with the Savior of our souls, Jesus is the ultimate “time well spent.”
I wasted too much time being stupid and broken.
I am believing God to continue to restore me and my family, one day at a time.
We only have 24 hours a day, according to a watch or a calendar.
When we pray, and I mean “really pray,” where we lose track of time when we cry out to our Heavenly Father.
Time stands still when we weep, worship, and pray out loud or silently, alone in an actual closet.
A private place we have segregated away from the norms in life, becomes our personal altar of mercy and sacrifice.
We will find solace there.
My closet is a greenhouse.
Somedays it is a chicken coop.
Anywhere I can find to be alone with my Master Jesus is a good place.
Quality of time is better than quantity, but more time in quality of prayer means more answers from the Lord to our prayers.
Simple talking with Jesus.
My maximum return for my time with Jesus is basically just a little more peace in the middle of my personal trials.
My optimum results come as Him speaking to me through His Word and sometimes in that Still, Small, Tender Voice of the Holy Spirit.
Mostly, the return on all of this is just knowing Him more and the fellowship of His sufferings for me, personally.
If you and I can realize the personal pain He went through for us personally, one on one...then we will see the tears on our cheeks.
We will feel the sorrows He felt, and little by little, have a glimpse of His eyes for people.
Even His eyes for us, personally.
He loves us so much, words can’t describe this kind of love.
Maximum, Optimum return on the investment of time with the Master-Teacher Jesus the Christ, the Anointed One, sent from God.
All the drugs I stole, and all the times I should have been killed are truly countless.
I remember over a dozen times I should have died.
I try to forget, but I remember for a purpose in my pains of life.
My purpose is to preach this Gospel of Peace.
NO pain, no gain.
If for even a moment, we could understand that compassion is more than love, then we would be more like Him.
A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for others. They suffer beyond, perhaps, what we have suffered.
Our compassion in Christ for others allows us to alleviate their pain, even if, it just a little bit.
All they want is to be loved and understood.
Listen to their pain.
Feel their tears upon your shoulders.
Pray for them.
The men who I have preached to in prisons for almost 40 years understand why I have compassion for them.
It is because Jesus had compassion for me.
He felt my pain.
He bore it all upon the Cross of Calvary.
For me, and for you.
Invest wisely.
Your return on your investment is more than finances and even peace.
Your return is simple.
It is knowing more about Him and realizing that we might as well get to know Him more now.
We will spend eternity with Him.
It would be better to not be so surprised in Heaven about Who and What He is, then.
Let's find out together now in prayer about His investment in us.
Individually and corporately.
He is the best.
And Jesus, the Best, is yet to come.
He is coming back.
That is His investment in us.
We are worth so much, He died and lives again.
He is coming back for His church.
Be ready.
“Be still and know He is God.”
The return on His investment, is His Return to Earth to take us home.
Maximum, Optimum return.
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
