Saturday, February 6, 2010

Jesus and the Accounting Cycle

It has been a while since I have posted to the blog. As many of you know I am going to school full time now. One of the classes that I am taking is accounting. I had not been very happy with the class until the last couple of days. At times accounting is confusing and at other times it is about as exciting as watching paint dry. One thing became obvious to me as I was lying in bed this morning. There are some similarities between faith in Jesus and the accounting cycle. Let me explain.

*Note this is not intended to be a very deep analytical blog. This is more of a hey, that's kind of cool realization blog. Any analogies should not be drawn out beyond the scope of the blog.

At the end of each accounting cycle you total up all of your assets and liabilities. After you have done this, you close out the accounts so that you begin a new accounting period. All of your revenues get credited (added) to the owner's (capital) account and all of your expenses get debited (taken away) to the same account. Think of your expenses as investments that are made in order to try to increase your assets. Sometimes you will make mistakes in your investment and you will lose money.

So far, so good? Now what does that have to do with my relationship with Christ?

Think of it as an encouragement toward unlimited investment. A Pascal's wager for living rather than for believing. You see there is a slight difference in the accounting cycle for us when we face judgment. All of our revenue (works) will be credited to our account and we will be rewarded according to what we have done. However, all of our expenses (sins) that we have incurred will be applied to Jesus' account. This is provided that you have a non zero balance in your faith account.

Don't take this too seriously, but do invest in others without worry for your expenses are covered.

Grace and peace until the next accounting cycle.