Ephesians 4:11-13 — And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Well I can’t deny that sometimes the inspiration for these devotions come from bizarre places! This morning, as Myra drove me into work, we passed a hairstylist displaying a banner saying “Great New Stylists Always Wanted”! That lead us to a discussion of modern short-term perspectives on investment, and thence to these thoughts about spiritual investment!
Now before I go to far, I should say what I mean by “investment (non spiritual)” and “spiritual investment”.
There are several ways of defining “invest”. Merriam-Webster’s Free Online Dictionary gives several, including the following:

To furnish with power or authority

To endow with a quality : infuse

To commit (money) in order to earn a financial return

To make use of for future benefits or advantages

To endow with a quality or characteristic

Most definitions derive from the Latin word that means “to clothe”. The main “worldly” meaning, of course, is that one that has “money” in it — and “making use of” fits in pretty well too! For spiritual investing, though, I want to focus on the ideas of furnishing with power or authority and endowing with qualities or characteristics.
I suppose I should say what I think Spiritual investments are. They come in two kinds … investment in our own spiritual growth, and investment in others through evangelism and discipleship.
Myra pointed out that the world’s investments seem to have an increasingly short-sighted perspective while spiritual investments can be made with a view to eternity. That set me thinking … There are some other differences.
The world’s investments are made for the profit of the investor. Spiritual investments, as suggested above, can be for own benefit or for that of other people.
Financial investment grows earthly wealth — if all goes well. Even when it goes well, it cannot be certain that the extra wealth will be a good thing. Spiritual investment grows people — and it never fails — it is guaranteed to be a blessing, not just to the invested but also to the investor! The end of Christian investment is that both investor and invested have, as Paul says in Romans 13:14 “clothed themselves with The Lord Jesus Christ”.