Then she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a very great quantity of spices, and precious stones; never again came such an abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
1 Kings 10:10
1 Kings 10:1-10 narrates the encounter of the queen of Sheba with King Solomon.
She had heard of his wisdom and decided to see for herself if everything was true.
And when she arrived, she found out that everything in King Solomon’s kingdom, was far above all she had heard and the king could answer all her hard questions.
In return she gifted him with one hundred and twenty talents of gold, and an abundance of gifts.
As I ponder this, I’m particularly struck by the mention of gold talents.
Jesus teaches a parable in the Gospel (Matthew 25:14-30) of a man who gave gold talents to his servants and went away on a journey.
On his return, he asked his servants to make an account of the talents.
The first who had made five more out of the five given to him, was rewarded.
So also the second who had made two more of the two given to him.
The last one who had hidden his talent out of fear of losing it, was stripped of the talent and stewardship in the master’s house.
I find it surprising (and draw similar lines to the actions of the queen of Sheba) that though she came bearing gifts for King Solomon, it appears she only presented the gifts to him after she had borne witness to his exceeding greatness and wisdom.
In other words King Solomon had proved his talents and increased his God given gifts to perfect the ruling of his kingdom and the queen of Sheba provided a commensurate abundance of gifts to him in reward.
In our lives, what talents of gold has the LORD entrusted to our custody? And what are we doing with these gold talents?
Have we dug a hole to hide it, for fear of losing it? I know I have.
Today let’s ask for grace to dig our talents out of the ground, clean and polish them and begin to put them into use for the increase of our Heavenly Master’s Kingdom.
Prayer
O LORD my God, how excellent is Your Name, in all the earth, how excellent is Your Name.
Father You are the giver of every good and perfect gift.
Today Holy God, I come into Your Presence and ask that You deliver me and set me free from every obstacle that prevents me from investing my talents to expand You Kingdom here in earth.
Deliver me from fear of men and fear of failure.
Set me ablaze with the boldness of Your Holy Spirit and help me to trust You completely as my loving Master and KING Who always abundantly rewards those who use Your gifts to Your glory.
In Jesus Name I pray!
Amen!
Always & Forever,
To the Lamb,
12 Feb 2020
With all my ❤