Because It's Not Really Mine

I cannot count the amount of times I have read, heard someone else read or preach on, or taught myself the message of the master and the talents.  If you have been around Christian circles for any length of time I am sure that this is a familiar passage to you.  Talents were money, large sums of money.  Given to three servants who invested them to varying degrees.  Our talent (our seal, our deposit) is the portion of the  Holy Spirit that lives in us and His gifts in our lives.  This deposit still belongs to God, and He expects us to do something with it.

It strikes me as I wrestle with demons of comfort, that the wicked servant could easily have been motivated to his actions by comfort.  He didn't want to obsess or worry.  Maybe he was afraid that he would just use the talent incorrectly and lose his master's money altogether.  So he buried it.  He didn't even try to use it.  I think he did it so that he could have peace and just not have to think about it anymore.  There was a certain amount of closure in knowing it was safe until his master returned.  I am sure he was comforted by this.  So we have this picture of a servant of the master using the entrusted talent to do nothing more than bring himself comfort. Sounds an awful lot like the spiritual masturbation that has gone on in the church and in my life for quite some time.

It is imperative that I keep this truth at the forefront of my mind--HE IS COMING BACK AND HE EXPECTS ME TO HAVE PUT HIS DEPOSIT TO USE!!!

II Tim 2:4 says, "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier."