me & my 4.5 million dollars

What if I told you that 4.5 million dollars had been given to you at your birth, placed into a bank account, and was sitting across town with your name on it?

Seriously, what would you do?

I am in awe this morning, and feel slightly like an idiot.

My husband has been encouraging me lately by referring to the parable of the talents.  Like most Christ-followers who have been reading the Bible and listening to preachers for a while now, I felt like I knew that story.

Today I read a devotional that referenced that same parable, so I thought I’d take a look at it first-hand and refresh my memory.  I always expect God to speak to me through His Word.  It is ALIVE and ACTIVE… it nourishes who I am in Him.  I did not expect to be blown off my couch this morning.

Thank God for scholars.  Historians, ancient language experts, and professors.  They don’t get the big gigs.  They’ve never been invited to speak at Passion or denominational conventions, but God preserves His Word through their ministry.  Thank You, Jesus.

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.  To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.  Then he went away.”

-       Matthew 25.14-15

The reason I’m thanking God for scholars this morning is because of the sweet, tiny footnote they typed in my Bible’s Matthew 25 page.  It reads like this:

“A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years’ wages for a laborer.”

Yes, I made it tiny on purpose.  Don’t miss the significance of the fact that they (scholars) know where they stand.  They know the power of the Word of God which stands alone, the ministry of the Holy Spirit in interpreting it and applying it to every reader’s life.  But just like my husband has been called to proclaim that powerful Word on a stage every week, they have been called to explain that powerful Word in footnotes. 

Twenty years’ wages.  My friend Google tells me that the average American annual salary is around $45,000 a year.  Times twenty?  That’s $900,000. 

For those of you who are mathematically-challenged like me, what this means is that those servants in Matthew 25 were given that day the modern-day equivalent of $4,500,000; $1,800,000; and $900,000, respectively.   When I read “talents” I imagined gold coins going “clink-clank.” 

Not so much “clink-clank.”  More like, “CHA-CHING!”

The point is, you don’t hide 4.5 million dollars in a hole in your backyard.  You don’t hide nine hundred thousand dollars in a hole in your backyard!  If we only knew the VAST WORTH of what we have each been given!  That thing you do with art, with words, with music… that passion you have for kids, for movies, for the elderly… that way you have with hospitality, with teaching, with encouraging… your excellence at crafts, at sports, at academics.

What keeps you up at night.  What you’d rather do than eat.  It is of INCALCULABLE worth to Your Creator, the One who shaped you first inside, then out (Psalm 139:13 MSG). 

Dan and I don’t keep much money in the bank.  But if we had an account with 4.5 million dollars sitting in it, I guarantee you I would know it.  Are you thinking today that you don’t have any of those “talents” I listed above?  Are you thinking today that this passage doesn’t apply to you?  That you’re not like so and so… that you’re average… that you don’t have anything of worth within?

WAKE UP AND CHECK THE BANK STATEMENT!!!!

We have all been given a gift.  If the church is the body of Christ, I may just be a broken, snaggled fingernail. But hang on a minute.  If you know Jesus, you can imagine Him... what His hands looked like then, what they look like now. Do you know the WORTH of one of those fingernails??   How often have I wished I could reach out & touch His hand, like I reach and touch Dan’s, or my six-year-old reaches and touches mine!   Do you remember the power that left Him when a woman merely touched the hem of his robe?  Imagine the power in one of His broken, snaggled fingernails, made new and clean and perfect by the redeeming work of the cross and the resurrection that He has already secured.

Yet we have this treasure in jars of clay…

Lest we never forget, the 4.5 million is HIS.

I realize that most blog writers don’t give homework.  But I just have to.  I think it’s part of my 4.5 million.

1.

Would you read Matthew 25:14-30 for yourself?  Would you ask Him to wake you up to what He’s lent you?  To the vast worth of it?  Most of us don’t even know how to find out what it is… A good first step is to believe that He’s given it, and to ask Him to show you what it is.

2.

Would you actually answer the first question of this blog post?  What if?  What would you do?  Because I realized that as I answered this question, my answers gave me amazing insight into what God is calling me to do with my life.  All that’s lacking is the faith that I have been given what it takes.  The faith that hangs on my refrigerator door for my kindergartner to remember: “With God, all things are possible.”  Don’t miss the irony in the master’s response to the faithful servant:  “You have been faithful over a little…”  Four and half million dollars is clink-clank compared to the power at His disposal.

3.

Would you turn your Bible’s pages to the very, very front and find the names of the scholars who helped write the footnotes?  And would you pray for them and their families today by name?  God called them to ministry.  He gave them a gift.  They don’t get the big gigs.  But He is using them to preserve His Word for future generations.  Thank Him for them with me today, and let’s pray His blessing over them.