Let All the 1-Talent People Stand Up and Say,"God is Good!"I think there is a massive army of Christian all over the western world that God is going to motivate to action by His great dedication to us! We often only think about OUR dedication to God, but what about His dedication to us? Think of it... He is a Father who gave His ONLY Son to free us from the destruction of sin! You better believe He is committed and dedicated to us! Mostly I think we live in a mind set that just focuses on our weakness and sins, our failures and short-comings. But the more we see that He loves us, we will love Him back! "We love because He first loved us!" I John 4:9 When our emotions catch up with our theology of this verse it is going to be powerful! There are going to be millions of believers that feel like they really know the Lord for the first time when they realize that they don't have to love God first! That He loves them first and they get to respond to His wonderful love and love Him back ... and that will spill over to other also. The motivation changes from being under the law and trying to be good enough to knowing that you are accepted and loved by God. When people genuinely know this they are motivated toward good works in a healthy way. Now I am not saying that we should not do good works out of sheer obedience and duty. It is far better to try to serve God out of discipline than to just give up and sin. However, there is an even deeper motivation called "the pleasure of God" towards a human being who is trying to know Him. Knowing that God enjoys you when you have said "Yes" to Jesus is a wonderful motivation... a true and clean motivation. There is an army of God out there who don't go to church, who aren't involved significantly or who have been wounded in life. They suffer from the same thing that the 1-Talent guy suffered from in Matthew 25: "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness! I used to be terrified when I read that verse! Because I had bought the exact same lie that the 1-Talent guy did... that God was hard and mean! I would just shut my bible and sink into a 1 week depression. Honestly, it was horrible. But I always failed to notice the QUESTION mark... God isn't agreeing with this assessment but challenging it! See the question mark at the very end of the verse? See the man was a victim of a lie and He didn't even know it. He believed the lie of the world and the devil that tries to get us to accuse God of evil. That is Satan's nature. To try to get us to accuse one another and to accuse God. That wonderful question mark is pointing to the fact that the whole Bible declares that God IS good... in fact He is kind, generous, peaceful, slow to anger (Exodus 34:6), longing to forgive... in fact He is Love (I John 4:8) Since God is love you can substitute the word 'God' for 'love in I Corinthians 13:4-8 and you get an AMAZING Character description of God! All this one talent guy had to be willing to believe was that God was good. But he didn't. God gives us billions of daily choices to respond to His goodness. When we do respond to the fact that He cares about us we are freed up to serve Him without fear! That was this guys problem. Lots of fear that God was more like Satan than He was like Himself. Lots of people fall for this lie and don't put much effort into finding out the truth. However I believe that God is revealing the truth to His 1-Talen people (and 2-Talent and 5-Talent people) all over the earth. When a grass roots army of 1-Talent people stands up to use there single talent it is going to be evident that God is at the center of it. Why? Because what can a bunch of 1-Talen people do? Not a lot unless God has so filled with acceptance that they will use even the least talent to worship Him back in action and song. And no man will get the glory. Only God alone will be honored in that day because it will be evident that He is at the center of it. And boy, aren't those 1-Talent people going to be thrilled when they enter into the Master's HAPPINESS! That is what God was trying to bring them into the whole time. That is the whole reward... the Gladness of God! He is a Happy and Joyful God... but most people are too religious, knowing only the law, to realize it. Brother Lawrence was a 1-Talent guy. Read his little book, "The Practice of the Presence of God." He worshiped God day and night in simple little actions. And you know God enjoyed that! Let the 1-Talent people see God's affections for them in Christ.... and Arise! |
