True Value

By Muchangke

Today, I watched a video about making money, and one sentence struck me deeply:

Do not merely sell your time today. Keep creating assets that can continue to produce value tomorrow.

The speaker was talking about wealth. His point was that when a person simply works for wages, he is often, in essence, selling his time and labor. Work for a day, and you receive a day's pay. Stop working, and the income may stop as well. Yet our time is limited. Rich or poor, every person has only twenty-four hours in a day.

So he offered an interesting idea: do not only exchange time for money. Create things that can be preserved, shared, and continue producing value in the future.

Once a book is written, the author does not need to rewrite it every day, yet new readers can continue to discover it. Once a song is recorded, countless people can listen to it again and again. A valuable video may still be watched years later. A piece of software, a patent, a research paper, or a course may continue to serve others even while its creator is no longer working on it.

In business, this is a way of thinking about compound growth.

Of course, creating something does not guarantee that it will generate income. For a work to produce lasting commercial value, it still requires quality, long-term accumulation, channels of distribution, the trust of an audience, and a sustainable business model.

But as I listened, another thought suddenly came to me:

What would happen if we applied this principle to the Christian life and ministry?

That question touched me far more deeply than the question of how to make money.

1. What Kind of Value Am I Really Pursuing?

If the sole purpose of a person's work is to make money, then naturally he will ask:

How much money can I make from this?

If he writes a book, he may ask how many copies it can sell. If he makes a video, he may ask how many views it can receive. If he runs a website, he may ask how much income it can generate.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these questions.

The Bible does not reject work, nor does it reject legitimate earnings. On the contrary, Scripture places great value on faithful work and teaches us to be good stewards.

But as a Christian, I increasingly find myself asking another question---one that matters even more than, "How much can this earn?"

Can what I do today build up even one person?

And beyond that:

Can the article I write today still strengthen someone ten years from now?

Can the sermon I preach today still help a young pastor twenty years from now?

Can a testimony I leave behind help someone who is weak to stand again, even after I have left this world?

When I begin asking questions like these, the definition of "value" changes.

What I seek is no longer merely the compounding of wealth, but the compounding of life and ministry.

2. A Sermon Heard by Only a Few Dozen People

I am a pastor.

Many times, when I preach in my own church, there may be only a few dozen people sitting before me.

If I measure the work only by "efficiency," the numbers may not look impressive. To prepare one sermon, I may spend many hours praying, reading Scripture, researching, thinking, writing, and revising---only for a few dozen people to hear it.

By the standards of the business world, this may not appear very "efficient."

But over time, I realized that this is the wrong way to calculate its value.

If I carefully prepare a sermon, faithfully preach the Word of God, and thirty people hear it today---and even one person's life is changed---then that sermon already has value.

Yet its value may not end there.

If I preserve that sermon, organize it carefully, turn it into written form, translate it into English, and publish it online, perhaps five years from now someone I have never met will read it at the lowest point of his or her life.

Ten years from now, someone may search for a particular passage of Scripture and discover that article.

Twenty years from now, a young pastor preparing to preach the same passage may come across the research and reflections I leave behind today.

Perhaps one day, even after I am no longer in this world, a testimony, a sermon, or a few words I once wrote may still speak into another person's life.

Then I begin to understand:

A small act of faithfulness today can have a life far beyond today.

3. A Deeper Kind of Compounding

The business world talks about compound growth because principal produces returns, and those returns become part of the principal, allowing growth to accumulate over time.

I increasingly believe that life has its own kind of compounding as well.

A book you read carefully today becomes part of the way you think.

A passage of Scripture you study seriously today becomes part of your life.

An article you write today may become material for a future book.

A sermon you prepare today may become a resource for training disciples in the future.

A season of suffering you endure today, when reflected upon through faith, may one day become a testimony that comforts someone else.

And so:

An experience can become a testimony.
A testimony can become an article.
An article can become a book.
A book can influence people.
And those people may go on to influence others.

This is what I mean by the compounding of life and ministry.

The greatest difference between this and the compounding of wealth is this:

The compounding of wealth ultimately increases what I possess.

The compounding of life may ultimately increase the fruit growing in the lives of others.

And much of that fruit is something we may not be able to see today.

4. Do Not Measure Only Earthly Returns

Jesus said:

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."
--- Matthew 6:19--20

These words redefine what we mean by an "asset."

We usually think of houses as assets, stocks as assets, savings as assets, businesses as assets, and copyrights as assets.

All of these have real value in this world.

But from the perspective of eternity, there are also assets we cannot see.

A life transformed by the gospel.

A family that returns to God.

A disciple who has been built up.

A pastor who has answered God's call.

A person who did not give up because you walked beside them.

A person who found hope again because of words you left behind.

These things are difficult to record in a bank account.

Yet they may be recorded in heaven.

This causes me to reconsider what I should invest in each day.

If I spend all the time of my life merely exchanging it for earthly income, then one day, when my time ends, my income ends as well.

But if I transform the time God has entrusted to me into things that build up lives, then even when I can no longer work, some of the fruit may continue to grow.

5. Will It Still Have Value Ten Years from Now?

So now I often want to ask myself one question:

Will what I am doing today still have value ten years from now?

Of course, not everything needs to be preserved for ten years. We still need to eat, drive, shop, handle daily responsibilities, and complete many ordinary tasks.

But in the most important areas of life, I want to become more and more committed to the long view.

I do not want to look only at how many likes something receives today.

I do not want to look only at how many people read this article.

I do not want to look only at how many people hear this sermon today.

Nor do I want my first question to be how much money something can bring me.

Instead, I want to ask:

Is it true?

Is it faithful to the Word of God?

Can it help people?

Is it worth preserving?

Can it continue to bless others after I am gone?

If the answer is yes, then even if very few people see it today, I still want to do it carefully and faithfully.

Because the things that truly matter often need time before their value becomes visible.

A tree does not lose the meaning of having been planted simply because it bears no fruit today.

6. True Value

The video I watched was originally about how to achieve financial freedom.

But in the end, it left me with a different question:

What do I truly want to leave behind with my life?

I have discovered that what I most deeply desire is not the day when I no longer have to work, nor the achievement of so-called "financial freedom" after accumulating enough money.

What I truly hope is this:

May every day God entrusts to me become, as much as possible, a seed.

Some seeds may sprout today.

Some may sprout five years from now.

Some may not sprout for twenty years.

And some may bear fruit somewhere I will never know about before I leave this world.

That is all right.

Paul wrote:

"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."
--- 1 Corinthians 3:6 (KJV)

These words give me great freedom.

My responsibility is not to guarantee that every seed will produce results I can see.

My responsibility is to plant faithfully.

So I want to keep writing.

Keep preaching.

Keep learning.

Keep organizing what I have learned.

Keep leaving behind testimonies.

Keep making disciples.

Keep passing on to the next generation, as faithfully as I can, what God has taught me through my life.

One day, all of us will stop working.

One day, all of us will leave this world.

When that day comes, how much money remains in our bank accounts will no longer be the most important question.

Perhaps the more important questions will be these:

Because I once lived, did even one person draw closer to God?

Because I faithfully used the time God gave me, are there spiritual fruits that continue to grow even after I am gone?

If so, then this life has not been lived in vain.

So what I seek today is not merely financial freedom, but fullness of life; not merely treasures accumulated on earth, but treasures in heaven; not merely what I can receive today, but what I can plant today.

May the time God has entrusted to me continue to bear fruit that remains.

I think---

that is true value.