God rewards faithfulness

God will reward you for your willingness and faithfulness to serve him with your gifts and talents. When you take a look at people around you I am sure that you have noticed there are people who have the ability to do things that you can't and when those people look at you they probably think the same thing.

God gifts us with wonderful talents that we can use to glorify him and serve the kingdom of God. How are you using what God has given you? When I played basketball, my coaches would tell us to focus on what we do well. When everybody did what they did well, the team was very successful.

When we use our talents well, we could have something like heaven on earth.

There is a parable that Jesus tells in Matthew chapter 25.

In this parable there was a wealthy man who was going on a journey and he entrusted his wealth to his servants. To one man he gave five bags of gold, to another he gave two bags, and then a bag to another. The man who was given five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received bag went off, dug a hole in the gourd and hid his masters money.

When the master returned he settled accounts with the servants. "Well done good and faithful servant." That is what the master told the servant who gained back five bags and the servant that gained back two bags.

What I want you to pay attention to is what the master said to the servant who hid his masters money.

"You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest." (Matthew 25:26-27)

What does this mean? The master divided the money (talents) among his servants according to their abilities. Nobody received more or less than he could handle. If he failed his assignment, his excuse could not be that he was overwhelmed. Failure could come from laziness or hatred toward the master. The talents represent any kind of resources we are given.

God gives us time, gifts, and other resources according to our abilities, and he expects us to invest them wisely until he returns. We are responsible to use well what God has given us. The issue should never be how much you have, but how well we use what we have.

How does this tie into faithfulness? Jesus is coming back - we know this is true. This means that we are to use our time, talents, and treasures diligently in order to serve God completely in whatever we do. Basically - this means doing our daily work out of love for God.

With whatever you are doing right now - you can do out of love for God. Whether you have a part time job for the summer, a full time job, or aren't working at all. We can always do whatever it is we do out of love for God.

We cannot fall into the trap like the servant who hid his masters money. That guy was only thinking of himself. He hoped to play it safe and protect himself from his master, but he was judged for self-centeredness. We can't ever make excuses to avoid doing what God calls us to do. If God truly is our Master, we must obey willingly.

Our time, abilities, and money aren't ours in the first place - we are caretakers, not owners. When we ignore, squander or abuse what we are given, we are rebellious and deserve to be punished. We deserve to be called a lazy wicked servant.

A cool way to think about it is that we are all walking gold mines full of potential. Deep down there is so much value that we can use to honor and glorify God in all that we say and do.

I encourage you to not waste the talent that God has given you. When you use that talent to glorify God, he will reward you for your faithfulness.