Biblical Success Principle #5 (of 7)

I’m super pumped to share this incredibly inspiring, biblical success principle #5 of the 7 biblical principles that I shared on my podcast a few weeks ago…

Maximizing your talents!!

If you would like to hear that podcast episode, you can listen (and follow the show) here: Apple | Spotify | Audible

And you can access all previous Wisdom Wednesday emails, that included biblical success principles #1 - #4, on my blog.

Now let's jump to biblical success principle #5, maximizing your talents.

The Parable of the Talents, found in Matthew 25:14-29, is a passage that highlights the importance of not wasting our God-given talents.

In the parable, a master gave talents, which was a unit of money (but can also represent our talents, gifts and abilities), to three of his servants, with amounts differing based on their abilities.

The first servant received five, the second two, and the third just one.

The first two servants invested their talents and doubled their value, while the third servant buried his talent out of fear.

When the master returned after a long time the first two servants showed the master the profit they earned, and he rewarded them with equal recognition.

The third servant, however, had nothing to show but the one original talent he was entrusted with, and the master was upset with him for not using the talent he was given.

The point?

We must be good stewards of the talents we have been given, and we must use them for the glory of God.

Every one of us is made differently and given different talents.

Some may be “five talent” people, others may be two, while still others of us are just “one talent” people. The amount we’ve been given by God is not our concern.

What should concern us, however, is whether or not we are using the talents we’ve been given to the best of our abilities.

I haven’t always, but for the past 20 years or so, I’ve desired to wisely invest my talents and maximize my life’s potential with an eternal, Kingdom mindset.

How about you?

Are you possibly allowing fear and insecurity to paralyze you or hold you back from maximizing your talents, as the one talent servant did?

When we play it safe, we limit our potential and our ability to grow. We must learn to overcome our fears and take calculated risks in order to fully make use of our talents.

It is never too late to start using your talents, no matter your age or stage in life.

Moses did not start his work until he was 80, and we must learn to trust in God's timing and not be limited by our own perceptions of age and ability.

We must also learn to ignore the negative voices around us and focus on what we can do with our talents, not limiting ourselves by our own or other’s perceptions of age and ability.

Let us commit right now, to being good stewards of our talents, and using them to make a meaningful difference in the world together.

What area of your life do you feel you can do a better job being a good steward of your God-given gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities that have been placed before you?

I’d love for you to share.

And if you’d like to hear the most recent interview on my “Life's Hard, Succeed Anyway” podcast, with Andrew Sallee, who went from selling rocks door to door to owning a $145M real estate portfolio, you can listen and subscribe here.