You know about investment portfolio management. And I’m sure you take time to ensure you invest wisely for financial returns. But what about eternal rewards?
About a month ago, our local representative for Mission India gave me a copy of The Eternity Portfolio by Alan Gotthardt.
Gotthardt notes that most financial consultants are happy to talk with investors about planning for retirement. More sophisticated consultants will even discuss legacy planning for passing assets to one’s children. But few (in my experience, almost none) will talk about how to maximize your giving for Kingdom purposes.
Gotthardt takes his cue from Matthew 6:19-21 where Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
With this as his foundation, Gotthardt urges us to consider how we may lay up treasures in heaven–what he calls our Eternity Portfolio.
Yes, he says, plan for your aged years. Plan for a modest inheritance for your children. But, even more, plan for treasures in heaven.
So he lays out the principles–practical and biblical–concerning how we might do these things.
I have been very impressed with his even-handed and world-focused perspective. He calls his readers to look beyond the borders of the United States and the West. He notes what he sees as the three biblical mandates for giving and Kingdom-building: evangelism, discipleship, and mercy to the poor. He then breaks those three larger goals into three smaller pieces each.
And he challenges us to evaluate these church-wide mandates in light of the unique and specific giftings and callings that God has placed in each of our lives–what Gotthardt calls our “personal mission.”
So refreshing. How can we go beyond the tithe and maximize our Eternity Portfolios?
I love it!
I am currently on Chapter 8, where Gotthardt speaks of passing the baton, training our children so they will acquire “the biblically based understanding they need to achieve success by God’s standard.”
“One of my major concerns for our children,” he writes, “is that they understand how different their financial situation is from that of most people alive today. Although they may live in a middle-class world by American standards, this places them in the top fraction of a percent of the living conditions of the world at large.”
If you are at a point in your life where you have begun thinking about how to go beyond the tithe, I encourage you to read this book. If you haven’t even begun tithing, then I would like to encourage you to read Randy Alcorn’s Money, Possessions, and Eternity
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on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at 6:45 am and is filed under estate planning, giving, investment, legacy planning, money.
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