Hi friends and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Mike Whitmer, and I titled Our Reading, Investing in Others.

When a corporation offered 1,000 frequent flyer miles for every 10 purchases of one of their foods,

one man realized their cheapest product was individual cups of chocolate pudding.

He bought more than 12,000.

For $3,000, he received gold status and a lifetime supply of air miles for himself and his

family. He also donated the pudding to charity, which netted him an $800 tax write-off.

Genius! In Luke chapter 16, Jesus told a controversial parable about a cunning manager who, as he was being fired,

reduced what debtors owed his master.

The man knew he could rely on their help later, for the favor he was doing them now.

Jesus wasn't praising the manager's unethical business practice,

but he knew we could learn from his ingenuity.

Jesus said we should shrewdly use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,

so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

As the pudding guy turned 25-cent desserts into flights,

so we may use our worldly wealth

to gain true riches.

What are these riches?

Jesus said.

Give to the poor, and you will provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure

in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no

moth destroys. Our investment doesn't earn our salvation, but it does affirm it. For where your

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