Friends of God! What a wonderful privilege to have this kind of relationship with God. No relationship can grow without investment of time. The same is true with our friendship with God. It's not just a matter of praying and reading but also giving time into his kingdom. When you give your time to anything, you are serving that thing. Serving will always be distressing, require reassessing, and be a blessing. The unfortunate thing is after we give time to something or somebody, we think we are entitled to preferential treatment. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a leader, the higher we grow in the pyramid of leadership, the fewer rights we have. Also the higher we grow, the more responsibilities we have. One cannot be a leader if they are not willing to serve people. This is what Jesus did when he was on earth. Your time given to God or others is the denial of yourself.
In the area of giving your talent to the Kingdom, the key is relinquishing the abilities that you have and the talents given into the kingdom for God's use. Most of us spent a great deal of our time serving the enemy. Today we will decide for the days we have left that we declare that our talent belongs to God. We typically look at talents in the area of performing. We don't look at our abilities as talents for Kingdom use. We have purpose for our use of talents even in the work place. David gave his talents to God that later was multiplied by God. He practiced playing the harp, walking in excellence, having courage, and being a warrior; even before he met Goliath or Saul. In John 6:5-13 the little boy came with a lunch and prepared to eat. Your preparation for life is in the development of your talents. Your talents and abilities are what you eat from. The smartest thing anyone will ever do is prepare for the future. God asked the little boy for his most valuable possession; his lunch. Your most valuable possessions is not your money or real estate. Your abilities are the most valuable thing you own. We have no idea how hard it was to release what he had, but we can assume, 1.) he would have preferred to keep it, 2.) he trusted Andrew not to take advantage of him, 3.) he believed they would feed him too. Whatever you Give God changes and multiplies. Our talents can produce much more if we can release them into the Kingdom. God always returns to us what we give to Him. Be blessed and encouraged.
Pastor Hines
