August 27th

August 27th -- Luke 19:1-27

Please read the passage!
Woooooowwww. Interesting little piece at the end. Paraphrased, if you use what you're given you'll get more, but if you don't use what you're given it will be taken away. That immediately made me think of our individual God-given talents, abilities, and giftings. God's like the king in the parable and we are like the servants. The ten pounds would be our giftings, talents, and abilities. Some of us use them, doing great things and getting more out of them than what we had to begin with. Others of us just leave them be. We act like they're not there. I find the ones who use them are often the ones who are real, true Christians with a real, true relationship with God. Those who do not use them, taking them for granted, are like non-Christians who, like the worker in the stories, reject their master, which is why they gain nothing from what God has given them, and instead those gifts are lost and given to others. Now, it may seem harsh for them to be taken, right? Put it this way - God knows what needs to be done. If He has assigned certain gifts to someone in order for them to complete a very important task, He will ensure that task gets done. If the person He gave the gifts to doesn't use them for that task, He will take them and give them to another to ensure the task is completed. It's not a matter of meanness or anything, but a matter of the fact that there are things that need to be done for His Kingdom, so He will find those who are willing to do it and enable them to. We are all gifted differently, and sometimes we may not clearly know what God has given us to work with. Pray about it, asking God to help you see what He has given you, and also feel your way out - if you're not okay with public speaking and stuff, you're probably not called to Missions, for example. Don't just sit like a car on idle, though. Try a road just to be doing something. Worst comes to worse, you pick the wrong one, end up where you started, and know one road that's not the right one. Just use what God has given you - don't let it go to waste.

God bless! Shalom!