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Talents Are for Use, March 17
Whatever gift each of you may have received, use it in service to one
another, like good stewards dispensing the grace of God in its varied
forms.
1 Peter 4:10
, N.E.B.
How many of God’s gifts have been misused, because those to whom they
were given did not have the fervor of the love of Christ in the soul. There is
great need of each one doing his best. There are those who would have used
wisely the talents given them, if they had been left to struggle and depend
on their capabilities. But they became the possessors of means, and they lost
the incentive to cultivate their talents, and make all possible of themselves by
communicating what they had. An abundance of money has spoiled them for
faithfully fulfilling their stewardship.
Let all who claim to be Christians deal wisely with the Lord’s goods. God
is making an inventory of the money lent you and the spiritual advantages
given you. Will you as stewards make careful inventory? Will you examine
whether you are using economically all that God has placed in your charge, or
whether you are wasting the Lord’s goods by selfish outlay in order to make
a display? Would that all that is spent needlessly, were laid up as treasure in
heaven.
God gives more than money to His stewards. Your talent of imparting is a
gift. What are you communicating of the gifts of God in your words, in your
tender sympathy? Are you allowing your money to go into the enemy’s ranks
to ruin the ones you seek to please? Then again, the knowledge of the truth is
a talent. There are many souls in darkness that might be enlightened by true,
faithful words from you. There are hearts that are hungering for sympathy,
perishing away from God. Your sympathy may help them....
The first work for all Christians to do is to search the Scriptures with most
earnest prayer, that they may have that faith that works by love, and purifies
the soul from every thread of selfishness. If the truth is received into the heart,
it works like good leaven, until every power is brought into subjection to
the will of God. Then you can no more help shining, than the sun can help
shining.—
Manuscript 42, March 17, 1898
, “To Every Man His Work.”
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