Sabbath Thought – God’s Investment

In the business world, a return on investment is critical to the success of a company. Money can be spent on research for future products, but those products need to bring in more money than they cost to create and produce. This stands to reason since a company that doesn’t make money soon goes out of business.

To consider this on a spiritual level, are we returning a “profit” on God’s investment in us? He has not invested money in us, but something much more valuable – His Holy Spirit (Isaiah 55:11). This question is not meant to create concern or a feeling of worthlessness, but to help make sure we are profitable servants.

One section of Scripture worth considering in this regard is Matthew 25:14-30 – the Parable of the Talents. While we tend to consider a “talent” in these verses in a more general sense of making the most of what our Master has entrusted to us, it is worth also looking at these verses in the monetary value given. In the time of Jesus Christ, one talent (most commonly of silver) was worth 6,000 denarii, and one denarii was about one day’s wage. The talent of silver then was a huge amount of money representing about twenty-four years of wages. 

Here in the U.S., the average worker makes $56,000 per year and works about 250 days a year – this works out to about $224 per day in wages. If we look at this parable in terms of the monetary value of what this master had entrusted to his servants, even the servant who received “only” one talent received the equivalent of about 1.344 million dollars!

What has God “invested” in us? Upon repentance, He gave each of us a measure (a downpayment) of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot be purchased with corruptible money (Acts 8:18-20) because the Holy Spirit is the extension of God’s power and essence. The Holy Spirit is invaluable to us – beyond calculable value or priceless – but extremely valuable to God because It is of Him! God has invested in us because of His desire to bring us (and eventually all of mankind) into His family.

This brings us then to the parable just before the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 – the Parable of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins. The five foolish virgins missed out on the wedding because they had gone to “buy” more oil. The oil in this parable is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, but if we can’t buy God’s Holy Spirit, how do we buy it? We “buy” the Holy Spirit through applying God’s instruction over time. That is, God magnifies His Spirit in us as we repent and seek to apply His Holy Spirit in our lives. This is one way that we can grow in grace and knowledge (2 Peter 3:18).

In the Parable of the Talents, the master was pleased with any increase that his servants made. He was angry with the servant he gave one talent because that servant had not given a “return” on the masters investment – not even gaining interest on the money. The servant had wasted the opportunity.

We have finished up another year of reviewing God’s plan of salvation revealed through His Holy Days. As we look forward to next year, and the years beyond that, it is worth asking the question to ourselves: “What return have I given back to God for what He has invested in me?”

I wish you a very profitable Sabbath,

Dan Dowd

25 October, 2025