“His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Mathew 25 v21
Teaching in parables is the method Jesus often used to reach many with a better understanding of how to live. Here he is commending a faithful servant who had been given “five talents”. This servant went to work and produced five other talents from which the Lord had given him.
Reading on into the same chapter/parable, there were some who hid their talents and did nothing. For this their talents were taken away and given to others and they were left with nothing.
In our world, many would often view this as unfair, for why would we take from those who have little and give to those who have more. The reason I see here and what seems to be true in our society very often, is we are drawn into a spot of feeling convicted into false compassion. We allow ourselves to enable others into a lifestyle of not using their own God given talents/abilities to do for themselves. While this may be a temporary solution for them, it can also be detrimental to their well being over a long period of time.
It also seems that one of our other societal problems is the co-enabler who is compelled in a way mostly of their own desires to continue enabling someone even when they see it is detrimental to that person. This parable teaches against such activity.
Of course, we are to have compassion, the same as we are to have personal convictions of how we live our own lives. We are to help the fatherless, the widow, the poor in the way the Lord would have us to because we love them.
As a tradesman, we have apprentices. I once was an apprentice myself and part of the apprenticeship was discipline. We were required to meet certain standards before we advanced to the next level of craftsmanship. I once was a soldier and one of the primary parts of that training was discipline, in fact it seemed more emphasis was put on discipline than most other parts of the training initially. This was done to help us understand that to live in the most difficult circumstances we had to be able to follow the disciplines of our training. When we enable someone to by pass life’s essential needs are we really helping them.
When we see the brother in the ditch, help him. Be clear in our walk with the Lord, do our self examination, use our talents/abilities to glorify God by handling our responsibilities as best we can, then ask for help when we need it. Seek counsel of the Lord. Lord, Heavenly father, may we hear from you today. Amen
Wednesday 12/27/2017
Threecrosses 