What do you do with what God has given you?

So I had set myself the challenge of spending the month of August thinking of ways that we can use our gifts for God. Now it is September, you can see how I lived up to that challenge. Still, that is not to say that I didn't think about what it means to give our gifts and how to use them for the glory of God.

One thing that did strike me and that I thought was worth sharing was the concept of stealing from God if we do not use our gifts in the right way. If we don't use the money that God has given us responsibly or in a way that is not demonstrating good stewardship we are stealing from God. If we don't use our talents to the best of our ability as God has commanded us, we are stealing from God. If we don't use the time God has given us to his glory, if we waste time, we are stealing from God because we are not using what he has given us in the right way.

This brings to mind the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14 - 30). In that parable, the servants who invest their talents and use their talents to the 'glory' of their master are rewarded and praised for what they do. But the servant who didn't do anything with what he had received had it taken from him and was "cast into the outer darkness". Everything that we have has been given to us from God and we have to invest it in a way that gives Him glory.

So, what do you do with what God has given you?