Why is God so good to us, so generous in giving us talents? I wrote last week about differing levels of talents, in my blog “2 Talents vs. 5 Talents.” If you missed it, be sure to read it. This week I wanted to talk about God’s generosity in giving us those talents, but also his prerogative in doing so. Why does God give us the distinct personality we have? Why did he make us as he did? Some people don’t feel they deserve God’s generosity. Others are not happy with the talents they received. Both groups think God made a mistake.
God did not make mistakes in how he fashioned us. We need to avoid both extremes. We must not hate God’s gifts to us. Yet we also need to believe God really wants us to have his gifts. Envy and false unworthiness hurt us and damage our relationship with God. We must not envy others (demand more talents) or feel unworthy of the ones God did give us.
We need to see our sins in light of God’s generosity. This helps us understand God is kind to give us any gifts at all. As sinners we do not deserve any blessings. In our unrepentant nature, we are separated from God, and we hate him. When we consider our utter helplessness as sinners, we realize we have nothing pure to offer God in thanks. It is only when we surrender our lives to Jesus, totally trusting him and following him that the Holy Spirit can awaken our spiritually dead souls. It is in this awakened soul that we can offer God pure praise. In our surrendered souls, we are no longer spiritually dead in our sin. Our praises to God can be pure, and our gifts back to him please him (thanks, worship, works done out of love.)
I want to add a note about gifts from God to those who do not love him. God still gives unbelievers gifts, simply because he loves and adores them. My favorite Bible verse is Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I say we “do not deserve God’s gifts,” in the sense that we are sinners. But God says that he loves us so much, he will give us gifts anyway. So please know I am glad unbelievers also receive gifts (talents.) I am just sad when I see them use the talents for bad purposes. Most of all, I wish they knew the beautiful and kind God who gave them these gifts so they could have the best love of all, Jesus’ redeeming love.
When a person has not surrendered her life to God, she (or he) may feel arrogant and not only “deserving” of God’s gifts, but envious and malcontent, demanding more gifts. This gal may be angry with God and claim he made a mistake in not giving her the gifts rich and famous people have. Even believers who have surrendered their lives to God can fall into the discontented state of not enjoying their gifts from God. Jealousy can plague believers as well as nonbelievers. When we stop looking at how blessed we truly are, we can end up envying others and no longer savoring our own gifts.
But today I want to write about gals who feel undeserving of God’s gifts. As a result, I am not going to write about what the gifts are, or how to use them. I simply want to write to gals who feel undeserving of good gifts—the talents God gives us. These gals might believe they only deserve bad things and bad experiences. Perhaps these gals wonder why God is pleased with them. They know they are sinners who continue to sin and thus need to ask for God’s forgiveness daily. Therefore they question why God is so good to them. If they were raised in a harsh home where they were not appreciated, and especially if they were neglected or abused, they will believe they have to work for love or else not deserve love, let alone talents God gives us. Unconditional love is a foreign concept to them. They did not know they were a beloved daughter who needed true love from her parents. Perhaps those parents did not adore her, play with her, listen to her and share Christ with her. They may have been deceived by the devil so then they deceived their daughter by demanding too much of her. They may have expected her to do things to please them before they would show affection or even approval. They may have been harsh and rushed her to make decisions and berated her when she did not do as much as they demanded.
But all the while, God was looking down and saying, “Beloved daughter, your parents neglected you. They taught you the wrong thing. They misrepresented me. They were supposed to love you as close to unconditionally, as they could. They were supposed to be like me, your perfect heavenly Father. When they made mistakes, they were supposed to quickly apologize, so they could model Christian brotherhood and sisterhood-the way Christians get along together. But they did not apologize. They were supposed to tell you about me, but they clung to the lies Satan told them, and they turned from me.”
I can imagine God saying, “But they were not supposed to do and say those things. So now I want your kind friends to speak these truths to you. I also want you to read all the loving passages in the Bible and believe I am saying those things about you. When you are tender and careful and kind to your child or friends, I want you to imagine me being that way with you. I want you to know how very much I cherish you and how I could not stand heaven unless I knew you were there. When you read Hebrews 12:2b that says, ‘Who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame,’ know that joy was you, beloved daughter. You were the joy that Christ felt when he went to the Cross. He was rejoicing while thinking of you.”
If these gals had a bad boyfriend or husband, I imagine God saying, “And when your boyfriend/spouse lied to you and bossed you around and was not tender with you, I was so angry and disappointed, because he misrepresented me. I am the perfect spouse. You are the bride of Christ. He was supposed to serve you and be patient with you and protect you. When he failed to do that, he failed me too, as well as you.”
Then I imagine God saying, “Now you keep seeking me. Keep telling the devil, ‘No,’ when he tells you that you are worthless. You are ever so priceless to me. Hold your head high and know you are worth all the pain of the cross, the human life and all its sorrow. You are my joy.” That is what I imagine God saying in how he sees you. He absolutely adores you! I am not making this up. Look at these words (from my memory verses): Isaiah 43: 1b -2, 3a + 4b “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned. The flames will not consume you…For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel your savior…you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”
Stay humble before God, and tell God “Do not let me be disgraced.” I keep reading that in the Bible–God does not disgrace us. I read it so often that at the end of this post I’ll share some verses about God not shaming or disgracing us. God wants us humble but not disgraced. So if something feels like it is disgracing you, (not humbling you,) especially if it is harming you, walk away from it. When God humbles us, it is to remind us to rely on him, not to shame or harm us. God’s humbling us should give us some reassurance.
I feel healthy guilt at times, and that is good. I am not proud to say I snapped at my daughter Lindsey one day when I misunderstood and thought she was not trying to finish a difficult chemistry lab. But God quickly convicted me, and by his grace, Lindsey called me on it and said my snapping made her sad. I was humbled, but it was a good sorrow, because I love Lindsey and quickly apologized, calmed down and then helped her. We both ended up laughing at how hard the lab was, and we skipped some steps, so we could get it done in a more reasonable time.
God humbled me so I did not hurt my sweet girl. If a harsh person had been there, he might have tried to disgrace me and shame who I am by saying, “What a bad teacher and bad mother.” No, I am a good teacher and mother. I was just DOING a bad thing, not BEING a bad person. Shame says who we are is bad. It is a lie. Guilt says we did a bad thing. Sometimes we are not even guilty, like talking about God but an angry sinner does not want to hear that. Then we are not even guilty. But when we do sin, then we are guilty as I was that day with the chemistry lab.
We can reject these lies of Satan, including lies bad spouses or boyfriends and harsh or neglectful family members told us. When we reject those lies, we can more readily accept the good news of God’s love. Then we can actually believe that God wanted to be so generous with us to give us the gifts we have. We can realize we are not being arrogant when we admit we have gifts. We are being thankful. Then we can use those gifts the way the two good servants did in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30.)
So, in closing, whether a gal is arrogant and demands more than God gave her, or if a gal feels lowly and undeserving of the talents God gave her, both gals can bring their experience to God. He can heal us of both lies and help us to celebrate being just the gal God called us to be, and to celebrate the talents he gave us.
I pray we blessed you with this post. Please feel free to share it with a friend.
Here are just a few of the many verses in Scripture about God NOT shaming us or disgracing us but honoring us.
Isaiah 54:4 “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.”
Joel 2:26 “You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied And praise the name of the Lord Your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; Then My people will never be put to shame.”
Psalm 69:6 “May those who wait for You not be ashamed through me, O Lord God of hosts; May those who seek You not be dishonored through me, O God of Israel.”
Isaiah 45:17 “Israel has been saved by the Lord With an everlasting salvation; You will not be put to shame or humiliated To all eternity.”
Philippians 1:20 “according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”
1 Peter 2:6 “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone,
And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”
Read all of Psalm 25, because the concept of God NOT shaming or disgracing us is woven throughout this Psalm.