Faith Plus

UV 3398/10000 Faith Plus
Jesus explained, “ I tell you that to everyone who has (because he valued his gifts from God and has used them wisely), more will be given; but from the one who does not have (because he disregarded his gifts from God), even what he has will be taken away.

Luke 19 v 26

Everything we have is from God. Life itself is from Him. He holds our breath in His hands and can take it away anytime He chooses. Our time, talent, tongue, opportunities, circumstances are all gifts from Him. If we recognize this fact and use it with an attitude of carefulness, gratitude, humility, grace, it will be further multiplied. Even the ability to multiply comes from the Lord. The uni-verse states that the Lord rewards faithfulness and diligence in developing and using the gifts the Lord has invested in us. To the one with faith, He will give even more both here in this earth and in the life to come.

To the one who is faithless, who does not know or believe the true character of God as one who rewards faithfulness, to the one who is careless, who takes things for granted, who is not diligent and does not value whatever God has entrusted to him, the Lord will prove Himself to be a tough taskmaster. He will take away even what He has. In the kingdom where Jesus is king, faith plus diligence is excellence. We need to study diligently how to best invest our time, energy, attention, spiritual gifts, health, resources, connections, influence, talents, abilities instead of worrying over what we do not have or what others have.

The servant who did nothing with what he was given had a bad attitude. He did not have knowledge of the true character of the master. He knew Jesus is the Master but did not believe Him to be fair or generous. Unlike the ones who rebelled and conspired against the Lord, He believed the Lord but drew wrong conclusions about His sense of justice. This led to bad judgement and flawed decision making on his part. This is what happened in the case of Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus. Instead, we are to emulate the faithful and diligent servants of God. They believed that whatever happened, in the end, the Lord is good, generous, faithful. Faith plus is proven faith, it translates into fruitful, productive, constructive actions. Only such faith is rewarded in the kingdom of Jesus.