Think Again!

82 • Think Again: Transformation That Yields a Return on God’s Investment

They look for a steward who will use seed capital to hire employees, apply entrepreneurial skills, and put in long hours of hard work. Venture capitalists show patience and trust, sacrificing in the short term in order to secure more blessing in the future. If the investment goes bust, the wealthy person loses everything, so investors must have considerable confidence in the steward’s potential. By releasing venture capital to a steward, blessing cascades into the community. People are hired, goods are purchased, and new businesses get started (who then hire even more employees). Investors’ sacrifices bring multiplication of benefit to a society. In the same way, God invests in us to multiply abundance of blessing for the world. Fruitful Abundance The teachings of the Bible reveal God’s venture capitalist nature, making frequent reference to God’s Kingdom in terms of multiplication of outcomes: • Healthy trees bear good fruit (Matt. 7.17). • A tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 12.33). • Good soil produces 30, 60, 100 times the seed that started it (Matt. 13.23). • An investment in a winepress carried the expectation of a profit (Matt. 21.33-41). • A farmer planted a fig tree looking for a return (Luke 13.6-8). • A grain of wheat falls and dies in order to multiply into more fruit (John 12.24). • God prunes like a vinedresser in order to produce more fruit (John 15.2).