“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 NLT)
I ended yesterday’s post with a question. We’ll get to the question in a minute, but first we must remember the context. My sense is that we have a lot of “one talent” people in the church, not that that is necessarily bad, but it certainly can be. Especially if the one-talent people do what the one-talent man in Matthew 25 did – he hid his “talent” and did nothing.
The value of understanding that is heightened when you realize the “talent” in the parable was the man’s life, not his earning potential or compilation of things of monetary value. God gives each of us one life that is filled with potential, but if we never uncover what that potential is, we can’t maximize the gift of our life to God’s glory and honor.
The “10-talent” and the “5-talent” guys in the parable didn’t have 10 or 5 lives, they just had more incentive to maximize their potential. On some levels, each of us has unlimited potential to be and do for God’s Kingdom more than we could ask or imagine, but we’ll never know until we try; until we open ourselves to the possibility that when we’re led by God’s Holy Spirit, we have no limits except those we put on ourselves.
Henry Ford said: “If you think you can or think you can’t you’re right.” Jesus masterfully gives us the opportunity to be more than we ever imagined we could be, but it’s up to us to say “yes,” and allow Him to do what only He can do to enable us to maximize our effectiveness for Him. When we come to the point in our lives when we realize we can never be all we want to be without Jesus, that’s when we kneel with our hands outstretched asking Him to take us and make of us whatever will please Him the most.
Because none of us has what it takes in and of ourselves to become who God desires us to be, there must come a time when we’re willing to confess our need of God. Once we’ve sought help from the Lord and been filled with His holy presence in the person of His Holy Spirit, then we need to find at least one other person to whom we can share our heart. That’s when we ask the question I asked in yesterday’s post: “Why is that so critically important?”
Have you ever wondered how that parable could have changed dramatically if the one-talent guy had asked the 5 or 10-talent guy to help him? That’s the tragedy in so many would be massively effective believers today. Satan has us believing we’re ineffective for Jesus because we just don’t have what it takes. That’s why there are so many “1-talent, stay unnoticed, don’t get involved” people in our churches today. That’s why it’s so critical that we seek these people out and give them the opportunity to find someone else who can walk with them, tutor them, guide them, dare I say “disciple” them?
None of us will ever reach our maximum potential alone. We MUST join our lives with someone else we can trust, who loves us and loves Jesus. Those are critical elements if we’re going to grow in our faith. If we try to follow someone who may profess faith, but is full of themselves, not Jesus, then we’re on a dead-end road.
Ask the Lord to lead you to at least one person, but it could be a small group of people who are genuine in their faith and completely committed to following the Lord’s will for their lives. But remember, you have to want that for yourself, or you’ll never find it in anyone else. Trust begets trust, and obedience to the Lord begets growth and maturity in Him.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 