Prayer of Invocation – Faith Driven Investing
Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash
The Faith Driven Investor movement stands on the shoulders of those who have come before us. John Siverling and the Christian Investment Forum are just one of the groups who have led this conversation, and we're grateful to feature their contribution to the movement here.
Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, I pray a word of thanks for the people on today’s call who bring a powerful witness to the financial sector through their faith and their excellence in what they do. I’m thankful we are able to join together today in spite of the environment around us, and pray that our hearts and minds are open to how YOUR Word is expressed through the conversations.
I hope and pray that all of us today allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, and to help us discern what is our calling, to Glorify God in our work, and to witness to those we encounter through our words but more so from our choices, our decisions, and our actions.
We have a powerful but dangerous role. We spend our days deeply entrenched in managing what Tim Keller describes as the deep idols of our culture, and it is easy to get caught up in this important role. But as de Tocqueville wrote, “the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy the human heart”. We can choose to allow the idols of our world to pull us away from our faith, or we can, as Paul writes in Colossians (3:5) “put to death our earthly nature of greed.”
Paul continues in Colossians (3:23-24) to implore us to ““Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
And so as we serve and love God, and follow his command to love our neighbor, let us also follow the words of Pope John Paul II who wrote “The decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector than another, is always a moral and cultural choice.”
I pray that we remember this as we consider how to be good stewards and invest according to our Faith, and according to God’s words to us. For in Jeremiah Chapter 9 [Jeremiah 9:23-24], “Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
So let our work, which is financial stewardship of God’s assets, be purposeful and excellent so it can be seen as boasting in our relationship to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May we seek out how we can use our gifts for investing to delight the Lord in practicing love, justice and righteousness to our fellow men and women.
I pray this for his Glory and in his Hallowed name, Amen.