In Matthew 25:14-30 we are presented with the parable of the talents. In this parable are two main points. The first and, I believe, most important point is that the Lord expects His servants to work. Many people seem to view Christianity from a negative perspective, meaning that they feel that as long as they aren’t doing bad things then God will be pleased with them. In this parable, however,we see that the one talent man is called “wicked and lazy” (verse 26) not because he had done anything wrong but because he hadn’t done anything good. God expects us to work. In Ephesians 2:10 Paul says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” When Paul says that we should “walk” in good works he means that they should be one of the defining characteristics of our lives. In James 1:25 James shows that if we are not “forgetful hearers” then we will be “doers of the work”. In other words, if we are not working then we have forgotten what the word says.
The second point of this parable is that God doesn’t expect us to do what we cannot do. In verse 15 we read that each man received, “according to his own ability”. In other words, God only expects us to do what we are capable of doing, not what is beyond our abilities. However, we cannot use as an excuse the fact that our abilities don’t measure up to those of someone else. God expects us to do the best that we can with whatever abilities we have.
As Paul said in Titus 3:8,”This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.”