Basic HTML Version
Every Person Has a Gift and Is Accountable, March 18
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work
or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
, NKJV.
The parable of the talents should be a matter of the most careful and prayerful
study; for it has a personal and individual application to every man, woman, and
child possessed of the powers of reason. Your obligation and responsibility are in
proportion to the talents God has bestowed upon you. There is not a follower of
Christ but has some peculiar gift for the use of which he or she is accountable to
God.
Many have excused themselves from rendering their gift to the service of
Christ, because others were possessed of superior endowments and advantages.
The opinion has prevailed that only those who are especially talented are required
to sanctify their abilities to the service of God. It has come to be understood that
talents are given only to a certain favored class, to the exclusion of others who, of
course, are not called upon to share in the toils or rewards.
But it is not so represented in the parable. When the master of the house called
his servants, he gave to every man his work. The whole family of God are included
in the responsibility of using their Lord’s goods. Every individual, from the lowliest
and most obscure to the greatest and most exalted, is a moral agent endowed with
abilities for which they are accountable to God. To a greater or less degree, all are
placed in charge of the talents of their Lord. The spiritual, mental, and physical
ability, the influence, station, possessions, affections, sympathies, all are precious
talents to be used in the cause of the Master for the salvation of souls for whom
Christ died....
God requires everyone to be a worker in His vineyard. You are to take up the
work that has been placed in your charge, and to do it faithfully. “Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”—
The Review and
Herald, May 1, 1888
.
[87]
87