"He gave $5,000 to one, $2,000 to another, and $1,000 to the last-dividing it in proportion to their abilities and then left on his trip. The man who received the $5,000 began immediately to buy and sell with it and soon earned $5,000. The man with $2,000 went right to work, too, and earned another $2,000. But the man who received the $1,000 dug a hole in the ground and hid the money for safekeeping. (Matthew 25:15-18)

"After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to him to account for his money. The man to whom he had entrusted the $5,000 brought him $10,000. His master praised him for good work. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, he told him, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Begin the joyous tasks I have assigned to you. Next came the man who had received the $2,000, with the report, Sir, you gave me $2,000 to use, and I have doubled it. Good work, his master said. You are a good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over this small amount, so now I will give you much more. Then the man with the $1,000 came and said, 'Sir, I knew you were a hard man, and I was afraid you would rob me of what I earned, so I hid your money in the earth and here it is! But his master replied, 'Wicked man! Lazy slave! Since you knew I would demand your profit, you should at least have put my money into the bank so I could have some interest. Take the money from this man and give it to the man with the $10,000. (Matthew 25:19-28)

'For the man who uses well what he is given shall be given more, and he shall have abundance. But from the man who is unfaithful, even what little responsibility he has shall be taken from him. And throw the useless servant out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'(Matthew 25:29-30)

Observations:
I asked myself what are the two outcomes Jesus promises in v.29-30 based on the parable He gives?

 1. For the man who USES WELL what he is GIVEN

                        shall be GIVEN MORE

                                    and he shall HAVE ABUNDANCE!

 2. For the man who is UNFAITHFUL, even what LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY he has

 shall be TAKEN from him,

            and he shall be THROWN OUT into OUTER DARKNESS!

Interpretations:
I asked myself what is so significant of what the man, who was given $5000 do?
It is awesome to realize that the man entrusted with $5,000 did not think to himself, 'what is only $5,000, what can I do with that' or 'using the entire amount is too much work for me, so I will half-heartedly use what was entrusted to me'.   On the contrary, he takes that entire amount of money and doubles it by the time his master  returns and has a profit of $5,000 more.

I asked myself what is so significant of what the man, who was given $2000 do?

It is awesome to realize that the man entrusted with $2,000 did not think to himself, 'what is only $2,000, what can I do with that, for it is $3000 less than what the other man got' or 'well, what I have is not much and I don't want to risk putting that money to good use because what if I lose it' or 'Having only $2,000 is not much to work it, so I will just keep it'. On the contrary, he takes that entire amount of money and doubles it by the time his master  returns and has a profit of $2,000 more.

I asked myself how did the man who got only $1,000 differ from the men who got $5,000 and $2,000?

Sadly, the man with the $1,000 did not even go to work with it. He just hid it and let it lay dormant until the master came back. He used an excuse of the master being a hard man and taking what he earned and therefore he just kept it for him without doing anything with it. He did not make any profit out of it. It is possible he may have thought to himself, 'I have only a $1,000 and it is way less than those 2 servants, what can I do with this money so I may as well just keep it somewhere for safe keeping and when the master comes back I will just give it back to him.' Instead of being hardworking, he was lazy not using what was given him to good use. So, when the master came back, he did not even give him an extra cent.

Observations:
I asked myself what were the outcomes of all 3 of their actions when the master returned?

To the one that made an additional $5,000, the master was pleased and responded with these words, "His master praised him for good work. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, he told him, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Begin the joyous tasks I have assigned to you. "

To the one that made an additional $2,000, the master was pleased too and responded with these words, 'Good work,' his master said. 'You are a good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over this small amount, so now I will give you much more.'

To the one that did not use his $1,000 to do anything, the master was angry and responded with these words, 'But his master replied, Wicked man! Lazy slave! Since you knew I would demand your profit, you should at least have put my money into the bank so I could have some interest. Take the money from this man and give it to the man with the $10,000."

Implications:
I asked myself what are the implications for my own life?
I need to use whatever the Lord Jesus has given me for His honor and glory instead of thinking to myself, 'I don't have much to use compared to so and so, so I may as well not try' or 'what is my talent compared to their's', etc. Instead, whatever is entrusted to me, I should use it wisely whether it is money, apartment, garage, storage,  etc without thinking to myself, I will just leave it as it is.  But, more than that I should use the spiritual gifts and talents the Lord Jesus has given me for the benefit of others instead of comparing myself to others. For the Lord gives each of us what He chooses to see how we will perform with what is given us. I cannot ever what can I do with this little money, this little time, this education, etc. No, I need to use everything the Lord Jesus has given me instead of giving up or being lazy.

How the Gospel gives me testimony regarding T.A.L.E.N.T:

I wanted the Lord Jesus to use me in ministry to reach out to students with the love of Christ, so I decided to join facebook and use it as a means to ministry by posting personal devotionals there in the hopes of reaching others for Christ. I used to even take classes so I can create sample exams before the real exam and post it on the education section of the Pittsburgh Standard with Bible verses embedded in them. I would also cover so many events and publish them in the Pittsburgh Standard in the hopes people would come and check the coverage they are in and be drawn to the religious section of the paper. However, recently I have not done 2 out of the 3 faithfully as I did in the past. This devotional has convicted me to use every opportunity that the Lord Jesus has given me to reach others for Christ without being lazy or thinking to myself what do I have to offer compared to so and so.

I am also so blessed to remember how my dear, loving wife Chandra would patiently sing worship songs for others so they could record them and use them at church in India. She did not waste the gift of singing the Lord Jesus blessed her with but decided to use her voice to bless the Lord and others.  She has continued to do that for Oakland International Fellowship pastored by Hugo Cheng and also has sung multiple songs for me to bless me.

Our talents and spiritual gifts maybe different but what the Lord sees is how we are using our talents and spiritual gifts for the benefit of others.

"Neglect not the spiritual gift within you!"

It is not limited to talents or spiritual gifts but can be in any area whether it is money, time, space, etc. The Lord wants us to use it for the benefit of others. Oh help us Lord Jesus! Thank you so much Jesus!

Whatever we are given comes with responsibilities and the Lord does not want us to waste away those talents and responsibilities. How we utilize the talents that have been given to us in terms of our responsibility determines how we can be blessed with more or lose what we even have so that can be given to someone else who will use it wisely. I don't want the negative outcomes to happen to us

I ask you now friend, what are you doing with the T.A.L.E.N.T, the Lord Jesus has given you?

Dear friend, first of all it is important to remember that we all have a talent given to us no matter how small or trivial it may seem or how big it may seem. The issue is not about the the quantity of what is given to us but the quality we derive out of what is given us.  A talent can also be represented by money, space, time, spiritual gifts, etc.

To have a talent can be exciting but when it is not used for God's glory than it gets wasted away. The Lord Jesus does not want you to waste the talent that you have been given. Rather, He wants you to invest that talent in people's lives and make a difference. Talent can be in any form whether it is money, time, space, spiritual gifts, etc.

I found it so interesting that in this same chapter Jesus talks about if we do anything for others it is like we are doing that for Jesus. In essence, if we use what is given us and invest in people's lives being responsible, it is like we are investing in our Heavenly Father's Kingdom and it will please Him so much. Thank you Jesus!

But, if we do not use what we have been given properly, I learned that the Lord is not pleased but very disappointed. Strong words such as 'wicked' and 'lazy' were used to describe the person who did not use his 1 talent but just buried it away. Friend, we do not want those words to describe us.

 Friend, I do not know what talent/s you have. But you are blessed to have some talent. Each one of us are talented in an area that we can use for the glory and honor of the Lord and when the day comes to account for how we have used that talent/s, the Lord will be pleased if we faithfully are responsible with even what little talent we have. That is exciting to know that the Lord looks for our faithfulness.

I also believe that when we use the talent the Lord has given us and we do not see any fruit right away, the Lord will still be pleased with us because we were not selfish and lazy just thinking about ourselves.

I don't think the master was upset that the person with $1,000 just gave that back to him but he was upset because the man did not do anything with it and was selfish.

Then the man with the $1,000 came and said, 'Sir, I knew you were a hard man, and I was afraid you would rob me of what I earned, so I hid your money in the earth and here it is! But his master replied, 'Wicked man! Lazy slave! Since you knew I would demand your profit, you should at least have put my money into the bank so I could have some interest.'

What I got out of the master's interaction with the servant is that he was not concerned that his money was not doubled but of the man's laziness and wicked attitude. The master made the point that you should have at least put it in the bank.

 It is not the results that the Lord sees when He gives us responsibilities and talents but our faithfulness. That is evidenced by how the master responded to those that put their talents to work: "You have been faithful" to the servant with 5 talents, "good and faithful servant" to the servant with 2 talents, and "wicked, lazy" to the servant with 1 talent who did not do anything with it.

 I found it more interesting how "good" is added to describe the servant with 2 talents and just 'faithful' to the one with 5 talents. Then, the opposite is used to describe the servant with 1 talent with the words "wicked and lazy"

 I believe this is because when we are given little talents it may not be as exciting to use them as one who is multi-talented and yet proportionally the one with fewer talents produced as much as the one with multi-talents profit wise.

Again,  I don't know what talents you have but your talent is valuable friend. You are precious and special in the Lord's sight and He wants you to be responsible with what you have been entrusted with even if it is not much and when evaluation time comes, you could be blessed and entrusted with more.

Don't let fear stop you or prevent you from putting to use your talents. They have been given to be put to use and not bury them. It would be a shame to lose the talent/s you have because you did not care to develop that talent and put it to use to glorify the Lord. It is possible that what we have if we do not develop it and become lazy, we can lose it.

 No matter what your talent/s or I encourage you to use them for the glory of the Lord and when you come face to face with the Lord, you can hear the words, "Good and faithful servant"

If we don't want responsibility than it is possible too that it can be taken away from you and given to someone else and you will be stuck without anything.

 This passage ends with an assuring promise for you and me to claim and a commandment is implicitly attached to it with effects based on how we handle our responsibilities:

"For the man who uses well what he is given shall be given more, and he shall have abundance. But from the man who is unfaithful, even what little responsibility he has shall be taken from him. And throw the useless servant out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."(Matthew 25:29-30)

 Don't ever think that your talent is not as good as someone else's because remember there was a reason you were given that talent. And friend, there is nothing wrong to polish our talent/s.

May you come to the point where you can utilize the talent/s you have been given for God's glory as you depend on Him! Amen!

"Totally Answer Lord Everyday Nurturing Talent!"  (T.A.L.E.N.T)/"What are you doing with the T.A.L.E.N.T the Lord Jesus has given you?"

Prayer:

Dear Lord Jesus, I want to thank you for loving us so much and dying for our sins and most of all coming back to life to save us and working in our lives as we yield to you. I want to thank you for the talents we have been entrusted with. You have given us money, space, time, spiritual gifts, etc. You know what they are Lord and if we have not discovered our talents, I pray that you will help us Lord so we do not have to have it buried somewhere in our brain but it can be used for your honor and glory. Lord, when we feel discouraged or afraid, I pray that you will strengthen us. I thank you Lord that you can light the fire in our heart again when we are distressed and down. Make us the way you want us to be as we yield ourselves to you for we cannot even use our talent/s for your glory without our minds being on you. Thank you for the responsibilities you have given us and we are sorry the times we have slacked of and done our own thing. Forgive us Oh Lord and please deliver us. I want to thank you so much Jesus and I pray for the one who is discouraged and down that you will comfort them and they can feel like they are cuddly in your loving arms of love my Lord and my personal Savior. I also pray for your forgiveness for those that have wasted their time away. Please forgive them and help them Oh Lord. I thank you Lord, over all the earth you reign on High. I pray that  you would reign in us Oh Lord over all our dreams and over all our darkest hours. I thank you so much Jesus for all you do for us. Thank you for hearing us and answering us. In Your Name I Pray Jesus! Amen!

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, You are my all in all. You are my Prince of Peace, Rock, Savior, and Friend. You are my Holy Father guiding me through to live a life of righteousness, Holy righteousness. Oh God, I need you more than ever. I need to feel your hands around me holding me tight. I need your love to surround me so that you can glow in my life. Help me please Jesus. I desire in your presence. Thank you for guiding me to live a life of righteousness. Oh God you love me more than ever. You hear my voice when I cry out to you. When I seek your face, you fill me up. You are my all in all. Thank you Jesus so much for your help no matter what I face, your grace is available and you take my case. Thank you for hearing us and answering us. In Your Name I Pray Jesus! AMEN! (Most of the prayer is from a vineyard song called “All in All”)