You Have a Gift Waiting

You Have a Gift Waiting

Are you committing this unforgivable sin?
“Don’t sin against your talent,” said entertainment legend Tony Bennett in the reflection of Amy Winehouse’s death by alcohol poisoning back in 2011.

Amy was the first British female to win five Grammy’s…
and BBC called her “the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation.”

She self-destructed at only age 27 — what a shameful waste.

Think of the other legendary sinners:
Elvis Presley
Prince
Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Heath Ledger
Michael Jackson
Chris Farley
Michael Vick
Whitney Houston
Kurt Cobain
Mark McGwire
Lance Armstrong
Jim Morrison
Truman Capote
John Belushi
Jimi Hendrix
And so, so, many more.

Not only is injuring your talent a sin, so is not using and expanding it.

Ancient scripture explains this through the “The Parable of Talents.”

According to the story, one day, the head of a household gathered his three servants together and announced that he would soon be going away on a long journey.

Before leaving, he gave each of his servants a certain number of talents. In those days, a talent was worth several years’ wages to the average laborer, so each talent represented a substantial sum of money.

To one servant he gave five talents; to another, he gave two; and to the third, he gave one talent. He cautioned the servants to look after these talents in his absence and then left.

While the man was gone, the servant with the five talents took them to the marketplace and traded with them until he had converted the five into ten.

The second servant did the same, trading his two into four.

However, the third servant, being a very cautious man, took the one talent that he had been given and buried it in the ground for safekeeping.

After a time, the man returned and gathered his three servants together to inquire about what they had done with the talents he had given to them.

The first servant explained how he had wisely traded the five talents he had been given and presented the man with the original five plus the five he had earned.

The man said to the servant: “Well done!”

The second servant came forward and said that he had also traded wisely and presented the man with the original two talents he had been given plus two more. Again the man said, “Well done!”

Finally, the third servant stepped forward and told his story. “Fearing that I might lose your money, I carefully buried it in the ground.” He then proudly presented the man with the one talent he had been given to look after.

The master took one look at the single unused talent and said, “Take the one talent from him and give it to the one who now has ten.”

There are several lessons to this parable…

1) We are ALL given a talent. All of us.

2) It doesn’t matter what life gives you or how many talents you start with; we ALL have the same responsibility to multiply what we were given.

3) If you don’t use your talent and bury it instead… what you have will be taken away from you and given to those who prove to be more productive.

Life is not designed to give rewards in proportion to our level of need, it gives rewards in proportion to our level of deserve.

Lots of people don’t like the way this parable ends. They think it doesn’t seem fair to take the little that the third servant had and give it to the servant who had ten.

In fact, many people actually want the government to force the opposite – to take from those who used and multiplied their talents… and to then just give it to those who buried theirs.

But Jesus is pretty clear on this point, QUOTE: “For to everyone who has [multiplied his talents] will MORE be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not [multiplied his talents], even what he has will be taken away.  And… [I remind you I’m quoting here, And] cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Whoa! I think that’s pretty clear. JC ain’t fooling around here.

So, you have been given a gift… of talents.
As Tony Bennet said… “Do not sin against your talents.”

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