A point can be reached in a business when the more put into it the less comes out. This point is arrived at when overheads exceed income; when more money is invested at one end than is made at the other. In economics this is referred to as The Law of Diminishing Returns, and it also works in other spheres of life — including human relationships.
Some people have problems and some people are problems. You can impart something into a person who has a problem, but a person who is a problem can extract energy from you and leave you in a weakened state. Later, you realize that you probably spent too much time and energy on that person for too little return.
Not that you would see sharing with people in need purely in business terms, but time spent with others more open to receive may have brought better results.
Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding reception by instructing the servants to fill up the water-pots to the brim — the lesson being that to get enough wine out, they had to put the same amount of water in. Giving a starving man $10 to buy food will save his life. The next $10 will help him to regain strength. Every further $10 given to him will gradually improve his health and strength.
However, a point will be reached when any further help will benefit him nothing. Assuming that he would be able to work, any later $10 handout would be better given to another person in desperate need.
I’ve always encouraged my wife Lorraine to be present when I was about to minister in a nation for the first time because that’s usually the greatest return for time, effort, and money spent on airfares. By this I mean we see the most decisions for Christ and miracles of healing in that first visit. The second ministry visit is good but less spectacular, and later visits show diminishing returns. The Lord’s grace is first visible in many decisions and miracles and thereafter is seen in the growth of people saved through discipleship and kingdom principles.
This is why, after putting increasing effort into getting miracles in our churches back home, we see fewer returns than we do elsewhere — unless we keep moving out and ministering to new groups of isolated or neglected people in the community. In which case, the miracles continue. The maxim is: Need Draws Power! The greater the need the more the power!
If you had a business that was just not working, no matter how much time, money, and effort you were putting into it, you would surely close it down before going into bankruptcy. So the question is why continue in an unresponsive personal relationship or membership in a church in which sick people are not healed because the minister refuses to preach that Jesus heals the bodies of people as well as their souls?
Are you seeking increasing returns in the form of souls saved and sick healed? Are you looking for more growth in your church? An increase in numbers saved and healed? You’ll get these when you teach the full gospel to those inside the church and preach salvation to those outside the church.
In so doing you will provide opportunities for the Lord Jesus to confirm the word preached with “signs following” both inside AND outside the walls of your church.