Your Talent Is Your Blessing

Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that give thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Wealth means, “The state of being rich and affluent; having a plentiful supply of material goods and money.” The Bible says that God is the source of wealth.

The covenant referred to in Deuteronomy 8:18 is God’s promise that His people would be the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower. It’s plain as pie. God says, “In order to keep my covenant with you, I’m going to give you wisdom to gain wealth.” Wisdom is accumulated knowledge or experience, with common sense and insight. True wisdom is a combination of studying to show yourself approved and seasoning it with some common sense. Solomon said, “I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 7:25). We should do the same. After all, what’s the sense in God giving you wealth if you don’t know how to make it last?

“Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net”  (Luke 5:5).

We read about people winning the lottery, then not knowing how to keep the money. Some of us work two or three jobs chasing after wealth and still have nothing. In Luke 5, Simon and the other fishermen were toiling, doing what they could do, but nothing worked until they listened to what God said to do. You might be burning the candle at both ends, but if you would just stop, make God your source, and listen to His wisdom, you’ll be able to succeed at your gifting and release the kingdom wealth that He’s placed inside of you.

You say, “Well, Pastor Dan, how can that be? I don’t have any gifts or talents.” I’m going to believe the Word over what you think. The Bible says God is no respecter of persons. (See Acts 10:34.) That means you have a seed for some talent in you.

You may recall that in the parable of the talents, the wise master gave five talents to one steward, two to another, and one to another. In those days, the definition of talent was two-fold. First, it meant a natural ability inside of you that allowed you to obtain wealth. God gave to each person a natural ability to resource something side of him or her to gain wealth. Some talents are hidden; others are more expressive. But everybody has at least one.

I was raised by an old-school mother who used to tell me, “Son, God gave you a talent. If you don’t use that talent for God, He’ll take it from you and give it to somebody else.” I used to think that was just my mother speaking, until I had an “a-ha” moment. I realized that what she was saying came straight out of Matthew 25. The guy who had been given five talents doubled it. The guy who had been given a couple of talents doubled his. But what did the steward with one talent do? He buried it in the earth. When the Master came back, he said, “You buried your talent. You hid your natural resource to obtain wealth in the earth. I will take back the talent I gave to you and give it to him who has proven himself capable of handling talent.”

Now, the second definition of a talent blew my mind. When Jesus walked the earth, a talent was equivalent to fifteen years of wages. So the steward who had been given five talents actually received seventy-five years of wages at one time. The second steward received two talents, or thirty years of wages, all at once. That’s a big deal!

The last was given one talent, or fifteen years of wages. So if you make $30,000 a year, that would be like someone walking up to you, handing you $450,000, and saying, “Here, do a little something with this.” How many could handle that? The man in the parable couldn’t. He took $450,000 and buried it in the ground. The master came back and said, “Because you did nothing with the talent I gave you, I’m going to extract it from you and give it to the man who has seventy-five years’ worth of wages.”

All throughout Scripture, people used talents to gain resources and wealth. Peter used his talent as a fisherman. Dorcas from Joppa was a seamstress. The woman in Proverbs 31 used her skills to bless her family. Joseph was a carpenter. The principle is this: God put a talent in you, and your increase will always be tied to that talent. Make a choice to use your talent for the Lord and His Kingdom!