“Belonging to God: Time, Talent and Treasure”
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to all our brothers and sisters, and believers in covenant of Dominion Church International! As we are in the process of putting our lives in order, and continuing with “Strengthening the 12 pillars of Life”, we are headed into our fourth week of 2012. This brings us to focus on sanctifying our “Time, Talent and Treasure” to God. These three things are intimately connected, and how we handle them is a result of whether or not our hearts “are perfect toward Him”(2 Chronicles 16:9). Now this perfection is not in a sense of being flawless, but belonging completely to God. This means all that we are, have and do belongs to Jesus. We demonstrate this with our actions on a daily basis not just on Sunday during “service” while the people within the four walls of the church building are in attendance and watching, but this is who we are, daily, as the people of God.
Let’s take some time to define these three possessions God has given us to be stewards over in our lives: time, talent and treasure. Time is defined as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole". Talent is defined as "aptitude or a skill". Treasure is a "quantity of precious metals, gems or other valuable objects". Take to heart that we all have these three things to use to the glory of God and what we do with them reaffirms our love and devotion to Him.
Time is the greatest equalizer of them all. We all have exactly 365 days a year. This is one thing in which there’s no need for competition to exist. What we do with time can either help us or harm us in developing the other two things which we all possess, talent and treasure. What we do with our time will also draw us closer to or further from God. He never moves, we move. Here are a few suggestions from the word of God concerning time. David says In Psalm 63 to God “early will I seek you” and later he, in the same chapter, says “When I remember you upon my bed, I think of you in the watches of the night”.
These are times of preparation for the day because who knows what we will face heading out the door or what news we may get through some form of messaging before we hit the door. At night we can be released of what may have transpired during our day and assess how we’ve handle it. In times of confession and repentance, we allow to Him wash, cleanse and reassure us that we are “loved with an everlasting love”. Time is what we use to develop and improve on our talents and often the development of those talents can produce what, to some, is the “most valued treasure”.
Speaking of our talents, whether inherited, attained through training, or self-taught, we owe them to God. Our talents are a part of who we are and so we give them to God as an “act of worship” (Romans 12:1), not for a spotlight, but for the world to see the realness of Christ. We “let our light shine” by letting God shine through our talents. As we shine, for Him, someone will notice.
Solomon said “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings…”
The last of the three T’s and possibly the most controversial is treasure. It’s one of the biggest fights that we have when it comes to yielding to God. Scripture says “the love of money is the root all evil”. To that I’ve heard people “adjust” their love and say things like; “I don’t love money, but I love what money can do for me”. So it’s not the money, but it’s the “doing for me” that they love. I am all for prosperity, however, the motive for prosperity is the concern. If we belong to God, so does our income, everything and everyone else we treasure.
Many of us are selling ourselves short because of hoarding. An example of what happens when you try hiding money from God is Ananias and Sapphira. Not saying when we don’t give the money to God we drop dead, but when we hold back, we will reap the consequences. The point here is somewhere in our heart lies the expectation of unlimited blessing in every area our lives, yet we pick and choose what and how we give and, in this particular case, have the audacity to act as if we gave all because it seems to have worked well for someone else. When we love God, wholeheartedly, we understand it all comes from Him. Our giving is a picture in action of our appreciation of what He has given us. Stinginess is the twin of ungratefulness. The offering benefits the offerer more than offeree. J
Eric B Flournoy, Elder | Dominion Church International
Thank you for this post Elder Flournoy. I do see areas in my life where I can improve on the use of my time, talent and treasures!