Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Don't hide your talent.

Matthew 25: 14-30

Due to the length of this passage, I decided to put a link to the verses.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2025:14-30&version=31

When we speak of talents, we are talking about a person’s ability. When Christ told the parable of the talents, it referred to a unit of money totaling over 1000 dollars. It was this parable that gave us our current meaning. It went from meaning money, to something of great value, to something special, and then to a special ability given to a person for use and improvement.

In this parable, a man goes on a journey. Before he leaves, he gave talents to each of his three servants based on their abilities. I believe that when Christ told this parable, he was preparing them for the day he was going to leave them to “prepare a place” in his father’s kingdom.

God only gives us the abilities we can handle, and he gave them to us for a reason. The only way for those gifts to increase, and become more productive for him, is by using them. This is what the first two servants did. The first servant was given five talents; he went out and got five more. The second servant received two talents; he went out and got two more. When the master returned, (the second coming of Christ) the first two servants proved they were worthy of his calling.

The third servant knew what his master had called him to do, but fearing failure and his master’s wrath, decided to hide his one talent. When he tried to give the talent back, the master took the talent, gave it to the first servant, then told the third servant he was wicked and lazy, and threw him out in the darkness.

When we hide our talents, they become dormant, and don’t produce anything. They don’t disappear, but by the same token, they don’t grow either. Since our talents and abilities give us a purpose, when we hide them, we live without purpose.

The good news is since we never really lost our talent, we can get it back. We need to acknowledge that we have a talent, figure out what it is, start to practice. If we follow these steps, our talent may come back slowly, but it will soon grow until it goes beyond anything we thought we could handle.

By bringing our talents out in the open, and living our lives with purpose, others will start to see the change, and become encouraged to do the same.

Challenge: Use your talent as often as possible, so that others can follow your example.

Enjoy,
Allen

1 comment:

  1. This is really something to think about. It takes quite some time to actually do something about it now that we know we have a talent. We also need to pray to our Lord and Savior to show us what our talent is when we can't figure it out. Thus leaning on His word is what gives us knowledge and strength.
    Thank you Allen for yet another pearl of wisdom. I thank the Lord for you and this site.

    Cindy Hernandez

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