Enbiggenning your capacitude!

I am one of those who sees the Parable of the Talents in Matthew as referring to the tribulation. Although Matthew's Gospel is my favourite Gospel, and have no problem with it being scripture, I think it is a Gospel that will really come to life in the tribulation, in fact I believe it would do the church good not to have it in it's cannon but wait until the tribulation before using it. Anyway that is all an aside really.

"11The crowd was listening to everything Jesus said. And because he was nearing Jerusalem, he told a story to correct the impression that the Kingdom of God would begin right away. 12He said, "A nobleman was called away to a distant empire to be crowned king and then return. 13Before he left, he called together ten servants and gave them ten pounds of silver£ to invest for him while he was gone. 14But his people hated him and sent a delegation after him to say they did not want him to be their king.
15"When he returned, the king called in the servants to whom he had given the money. He wanted to find out what they had done with the money and what their profits were. 16The first servant reported a tremendous gain—ten times as much as the original amount! 17‘Well done!’ the king exclaimed. ‘You are a trustworthy servant. You have been faithful with the little I entrusted to you, so you will be governor of ten cities as your reward.’
18"The next servant also reported a good gain—five times the original amount. 19‘Well done!’ the king said. ‘You can be governor over five cities.’
20"But the third servant brought back only the original amount of money and said, ‘I hid it and kept it safe. 21I was afraid because you are a hard man to deal with, taking what isn’t yours and harvesting crops you didn’t plant.’
22"‘You wicked servant!’ the king roared. ‘Hard, am I? If you knew so much about me and how tough I am, 23why didn’t you deposit the money in the bank so I could at least get some interest on it?’ 24Then turning to the others standing nearby, the king ordered, ‘take the money from this servant, and give it to the one who earned the most.’
25"‘But, master,’ they said, ‘that servant has enough already!’
26"‘Yes,’ the king replied, ‘but to those who use well what they are given, even more will be given. But from those who are unfaithful, even what little they have will be taken away. 27And now about these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in my presence.’" Luke 19:11-27

This passage in Luke is slightly different and more likely fits the church.

Anyway, The point is each of us is given a measure of something. Faith, love, hope, emotional capacity, courage, understanding, you name it, if you have a thing, you generally have it in a measure. Jesus wants us to increase. There have been books upon books on the "Prayer of Jabez" who prayed that God would increase his borders.

Since the beginning of time, lions have been lions, they do what lions do. Rabbits have been rabbits and do what rabbits do. Humans on the other hand have increased in there capacities. It is one thing to ask God to increase us, but nothing if we are not prepared to increase! Solomon increased his understanding, he studied everything. We are not necessarily supposed to increase in that which we haven't been given. For example, I am presuming that I am not to increase in my ability to play football, I don't play football or even like the sport must at all. However, there are so many areas in life where we should view ourselves as "learning", "growing", "developing", "maturing" and so on. Can we learn about love? Can we learn about faith? Can we increase both? Yes, so why shouldn't we? Should it not be on our agenda, our timetable of learning as if we were at college?

Even in the practical stuff. Would you like a promotion? Would you like to get on better at work? In relationships? All of this too can be learnt, if we are willing to learn. We are told to ask God if we lack wisdom, we should not settle for "Well, that's life I suppose!" Wisdom, in the Old Testament, means "skill in living!" If you have ever seen someone with a skill making something look easy then that is wisdom. It is something that is learned and practiced. When a skilled person makes it look easy, what you don't see is the hours of mistakes, what you do see is the result of not giving up when failures come, as they do!

Phil MacGraw said that the first life law is,"You either get it or you don't, if you don't, find out what you don't get and get it!" As someone involved in educating children I can tell you, I can stand their telling them something until I am blue in the face, but if they aren't prepared to apply themselves to what I want to teach them it is pointless. It is no different with us and God, God can show us how to increase, but if we are not prepared to increase then it is pointless!