I was on my prayer walk a couple of nights ago when The LORD asked me about the Bible verses I had read the previous night.

His question related to the Words of Jesus from in Luke 19:12b-27 in the NKJV,

“A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Do business till I come.’
But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’
And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten minas.’
And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned five minas.’ Likewise he said to him, ‘You also be over five cities.’
Then another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’
And he said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow.
Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’
And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to him who has ten minas.’ (But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’)
‘For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’ ”

As I praying, The LORD asked me this:

What if the third servant mentioned here had loved the nobleman, and instead of hiding the mina in a cloth had invested it or traded it, and each day had taken the earnings and bought food with it to give away to the widows and needy of the town, in the name of the nobleman, so that when the nobleman returned and passed through the marketplace, the widows and needy would have recognised him and praised him there before all?

What would the nobleman have said then?

As I thought about that, The LORD reminded me about the three basic points from John Wesley’s sermon, “The Use of Money.”

Earn all you can,
Save all you can, and
Give all you can….

In 1789, Wesley saw the Methodists of his day ignoring the third part of this sermon and argued that the main reason for the Methodist movement’s ineffectiveness, was their failure to give all they could.

His conclusion was, “If Methodists would give all they can, then all would have enough.”

This admonition to ‘give all they could’ wasn’t pious rhetoric to fill church coffers — but a plea for generosity and compassion for the poor and needy.

~ Angus MacKillop

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