Are You Trustworthy?
1 Corinthians 4:2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
Can I ask you – are you trustworthy? If I left you to manage my retirement fund, could I trust you not to help yourself to the proceeds? Could I trust you to invest my funds wisely? Could I trust you to work hard and have my best interests at heart – not just sometimes, but all the time?
Only you know the answer to those questions.
Sometimes, we think that trustworthiness is just about not stealing – but that’s only half the equation. If you’re managing my retirement fund, I’d also expect you to invest wisely, balancing the risk and the return.
I wouldn’t want you, for instance, to bet the whole lot on a horse race. But on the other hand, I’d expect more than just bank interest.
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. (1 Corinthians 4:2)
Trustworthiness is when you demonstrate unmistakably through your actions that you are worthy of someone’s trust. It’s something that Jesus talks about, powerfully, in the parable of the talents – Matthew 25:14-30.
As the parable goes, one servant was entrusted with five talents, the next with two talents and the last with one talent, according to their ability. You probably know how the story ends – the first two doubled their master’s money and they were praised and rewarded. But the last one buried it in the ground to keep it safe, and was punished.
The point of that story revolves very much around the value of a talent. Scholars generally agree that a single talent was the equivalent of fifteen years’ wages for a labourer in the first century.
So the servant entrusted with the five talents received seventy-five years’ wages, the one with two talents thirty years’ wages. Even the one who received only one talent was entrusted with fifteen years’ wages!
The point, simply, is this.
Do you have any idea how much God has entrusted you with?!
It may not feel like a lot, but look at your gifts and abilities, your relationships and networks, your resources, your time, your energies. God has blessed you with an incredible amount. And not just blessed you with it, but entrusted it to you.
Because, after all, none of it is yours. He entrusted all that to you, with a purpose: for you to go and invest it, for a return for your master; for a Kingdom return. Get it?!
So, without putting too fine a point on it, would you please get out there and invest all that God has entrusted you with for His glory. Get out there and through your actions, prove yourself worthy of His trust in you.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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