Nov 14

Matthew 25:14-23
14 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone.
15 He gave five bags of silver to one, two bags of silver to another, and one bag of silver to the last—dividing it in proportion to their abilities. He then left on his trip.
16 “The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more.
17 The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more.
18 But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.
19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.
20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’
21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’
22 “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’
23 “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

"When God was passing out brains, you thought he said trains, and asked for a slow one!" "When God was giving out looks, you shouted, 'Gimme!' but he thought you said, 'Skip me!'" "When God was handing out personality, you thought he said abnormality, so you asked for an invisible one!" None of those statements is true of you, of course. After all, you've got a thing or two going for you, right? Right. God has given you some good things, no matter how unattractive or untalented you may feel at times. Maybe he gave you a great family. Or he might have blessed you with athletic ability or at least a healthy body. Or a healthy mind. Or understanding parents. Or a better-than-average singing voice. Or a pleasant personality and a talent for making friends. Or good eyesight. Good posture. Straight teeth. The point is, God has given you something. Maybe you don't think he gave you as much to work with as he gave "Crash" Helmut, the captain of the football team, or Heather Fields, the prettiest girl in the history of adolescence. But whether God has given you little or much, it's important how you are using what he has given you. If he gave you a good mind, do you use it well, or do you use it to figure out how to fool your parents or lie to your teachers? If he gave you a nice voice, do you use it to sing and pray to God, or to curse your brothers and sisters? Scripture says, "The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and faithfulness" (1 Samuel 26:23, NIV). If you are faithful with what God has given you already, he may someday reward you with more blessings, more responsibilities, more advantages. But if you waste or misuse what he's given you, why should he trust you with more?

REFLECT: Faithfulness to God includes using his many good gifts wisely. Take a moment to list in your mind as many good things as you can think of that God has given you. Don't overlook the obvious (such as your five senses) or the material (such as a comfortable bed to sleep in). On a scale of one to ten (ten meaning "like Socrates or Solomon" and one meaning "needs immediate help"), how would you rate your wise use of God's good gifts?

PRAY: "Thank you, God, for the good things you've given to me, especially…"

i dont really see the comparison of the story and the verses today...maybe just a wee bit but not much...okay well what really stood out to me for todays devotion was that whatever gift God has given us, we should use it for the good because God had purposefully given us the gift so that we can embrace it and use it to serve him. he has all given us the praise team, the musical talent of playing our instruments. i guess all of us acted on our gift that God has given us and used it to serve him like what i had mentioned. there are many strong and good qualities that God had blessed us with. when God blesses us with our gifts that we all fortunately carry around, he gave a part of himself for us to use it for the good. there are many people that use their gifts the wrong way and there are always consequences for making the wrong choice especially when God had given it to us to use it to glorify his name.
sorry if my words are confusing, i do find that my wording and whatnot can come out rather strange sometimes...anywhoo see you all saturday!

Making most of what we have was a very strong message that kept repeating itself in the Bible. We've seen so many great christian leaders carry the cross with nearly nothing but God's will.

Maybe the strength that we use to carry the congregation shouldn't be that of our own, but ours and God's put together. We are praising God, but through that, I think what we need to do as any sort of group that's contributing to the church; is bringing ourselves closer on a personal level with God. Any objective that we might have as a praise team would ultimately take very little but God's will. As long it's all for him, I think we can bring ourselves the strength from God to carry out the mission.

So in the end, even the newest noobs can do great things with a clear vision of God and his will. From today's devo, I think we should reflect on how and where we can find God's will in our everyday lives.

Um, didn't get much, but I think this devo highlights the importance of using our gifts wisely. Since we're all praise team, I'll use music for an example. Our musical gifts can be compared to bags of silver in the parable. We weren't given it to just bury in a hole and whatnot, but instead we should be investing it and growing it. Practice and learning to play better is all part of growing the talents that God gave us. Furthermore, we should be using those talents to give back to God, which we do, but in the example of other talents, we should always be doing everything we do for God. So yea, sorry for the short response, but thats what I got.

Today's Devo was nice......
Use your gifts wisely. God has granted us something special and individual for us to use. It is important how we use this ability for the better.
Today, I turned on the tv and the news was talking about this smart man who used his knowledge to break into someone else's house and assault them.
What might the world be if everyone used their gifts to use it for good? That's what god inteded these gifts for.
It's almost like superpowers. Do we use them to be the superhero, or the super villain?
.......that sounded a bit cheesy.......

Well, good night!
~Audrey~

ehh pretty beeat wil post tomarrow =)

I got the message that we should use our talents for good.
Don't abuse or take advantage of what you have because it makes you feel powerful.
God gave you special features for a reason, so you might as well put it to good use.
I think it can really relate to us as a praise team.
Like Kevin said, the praise team and leadership are probably the most influential group of students in the whole Hi-C. We shouldn't let that go to our heads and automatically think like it's some popularity contest.
If we are given the position of leadership, we should use it to encourage others, and positively lead and influence the congregation.

Sorry guys, I was on a school retreat for the past two days so I'll be catching up tonight!

This devo was about going above and beyond what you've been told to do with your talent and using it to praise and worship God.
I'll use the example of singing.
If you've been rewarded with a voice to sing with, sing with it. But sing with it for God.

Same goes to every other sort of talent you can think of.

Don't just stay in the clear and do the bear minimum.
Always push yourself to learn more, do better and help others in their talents to do better was well!

idk what this was talking about but after i read the reflection i can name SEVERAL thigns that i can be thankful for that God has provided me. Everyone has atleast some sort of thing and we should be thankful to him.
This reminds me of thanksgiving and how we only thankhim gratefully only ONCE a year. most people probably celebrate thanksgiving with the wrong meanings. i know that i have in the past but we should always be thanking God all the time

sooo
muucchchchc
workkk
woooooooooooow
gnite

I agree with Audrey
I did enjoy this devo

USE THE gifts God gave us in amazing ways
JUST like the mention of the "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for one day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for ever"
We are all capable of SOMETHING. It's how we use that something to glorify God that matters.