Everyone knows that a farmer works hard physically. But a farmer has his crops growing while he is sleeping. If it is raining during the night his crops are being watered while he sleeps. Many investments work this way. Think of your dollars invested as working for you as you are sleeping. There is something inherently good about this. It is called passive income because you do not have to do anything for it to yield increase as opposed to active income that is payment for your labor.

Plant a seed and several months later that seed will produce fruit with dozens of seeds. Investing is one way of planting seeds for the future. Plant now, the harvest is in the future. The average stock related investment doubles every 7 years. These are not chance deals with big risk. Begin to live on the harvest and not the seeds. Don’t eat your seed. Make a goal to save and invest 10% of your income. It’s okay to start with 2 or 3% and work up to 10%.

Consider the story Jesus told about the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30). Jesus was literally talking about investing money. Spiritual gifts (what we sometimes call talents) are a secondary application of these scriptures. As we will discuss later a talent in Jesus’ day was a set amount of money. Think in terms of planting, time, and reaping. This biblical principle is called seed time and harvest. It is found throughout the Bible.

Some people are waiting around for God to do a financial miracle. Their faith might be fixed on Proverbs 13:22, “And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” If those Christians simply applied the principles in God’s word, the wealth of the sinners would begin to flow into their hands. Instead,they are waiting for God to fulfill his word and he is waiting for them to apply his principles and plant some seeds.