By Mary Carothers

Jesus taught us with parables. He must have known that this was the best way to teach the princi­ples that God wants us to understand. In Matthew 25, Jesus told the parable of the talents. In this story, the talents represented money. However, the principle that Jesus was teaching is not limited to money. The principle He taught was that we are expected – even required – to use the talents He has chosen to give each of us. Like the servants in the parable, we will also stand before the Lord one day and give an accounting of our stewardship. It is required of stewards that a man should be found faithful – proving himself worthy of trust (I Corinthians 4:2 AMP).

In this parable, the Master is pleased with His servants who wisely used their talents. He praised and then rewarded them: Well done, you upright
(honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much. Enter into and share the joy – the delight, the blessedness – which your master enjoys (verse 21).

One servant had more than twice as many talents as the other. Yet both were praised and rewarded equally. The same will be true for you and me. The Lord will not judge us by the talents or abilities of another person. For example, I could not do for the kingdom of God what Merlin does. God has not equipped me with the necessary talents to do so. Instead, He requires me to faithfully use the talents He has given me. From God’s point of view, how many talents we have or
how great they are is not important. What is important to Him is whether we use what we have to build up His kingdom. And that we do so in a manner that brings honor and glory to the Lord rather than to ourselves.

Suppose my talent was to sing or to teach a Bible class. It wouldn’t matter whether I had “five talents” worth of ability, or only “one talent”. What would matter would be my obedience to God’s will for me and my willingness to do my very best – for His glory, not mine.

What talents do you have? If you don’t know, ask the Lord to help you discover them, In the meantime, you can always pray for others (an extremely import­ant ministry), write an encouraging note to someone who has blessed you, bring a meal to someone who is sick, do some housecleaning for a disabled person, call someone who is lonely and offer encouragement, babysit for a single mom – the list of things we can do to minister to others is endless.

Remember, we don’t want to be like the servant who hid his talents and didn’t use it. His was a sad end. Lord, I pray that our desire will be to obey Your will for us, and may our deepest longing always be to build up your kingdom and to bring honor and glory to Your name. (Reprint from June 1996)