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Skills Talents And Earning A Living
Talent and skill are often considered praise worthy and appreciated for a number of reasons from entertaining to life saving.
Not all people show talent at a young age, and some seem to grow sideways when they are young, but many mature to develop significant skills and talents. Some skills and talents will bloom into careers and others just for personal enjoyment. The problem lies in that many of the skills and talents practised and developed by young people do not lead to earning a living or even to making money and that those skills are the only ones they worked at, things like playing games. Only a very small percentage of the population is able to make money at playing games and only in a few select games. There is no money in most games that children play.
But everyone has to earn a living or be supported. Money is a big part of everyone^s life either directly or indirectly, at least in most of the western world. We need it to pay for our food, clothing, shelter and transportation and to pay our tithes.
Another problem is that many things that lead to making money make for a deteriorating society, things like sexually associated careers, drug trade, gambling, and in these days politicking, banking and lawmaking.
It seems that there is increasingly greater opportunity in life in being dishonest and conniving than in being righteous. There are a great deal of examples of this;
the car industry and its aftermarket, they constantly produce new models with new parts rather than better, more durable, parts,
the medical and pharmaceutical industry, prescribe drugs for everything it seems,
education in general, many and perhaps most university degrees no longer lead to better jobs,
law, lawyers write laws to instantly create criminals who will need their services,
religion, most religions are false religions preaching false hope,
the computer and electronics world, they increasingly force you into frequent, expensive upgrades and newer technology,
just to mention a few legal professions. Oh yes,
and bankers make increasingly bad loans and do not pay depositors
and politics leads to war at an alarming rate these days.
This is the environment that we are all sent into to earn our wages and our living. It is nothing that is not common to man. Many things are legal but unethical. Which begs the question can a true disciple of God and Jesus earn a righteous living and pay a righteous tithe and make righteous offerings?
The best batters in baseball only bat around 300. It sounds like a big impressive number but it represents 300/1000 or 0.3, 30%, in other words they hit the ball about every third time at bat, but they get three swings each time they go to bat so they are really only hitting around 10 percent of the time not considering foul balls. Meanwhile the pitchers are just trying to make it very difficult for them to hit the ball, they are giving the batters a hard time. Is life really about survival of the fittest, the most fit and skilled athletes, as games seem to indicate or try to convey? The fact is that the fittest among us don^t live any longer than the weakest. I heard of a family where the one child who was confined to a wheel chair all his life out lived all his siblings. Sport like attitudes permeate many professions, sad to say. But there are professions where 100% error free performance is the required or at least the expected norm, like surgery, dentistry and bridge building. Can you imagine these professions batting 300?
Many professions have limited demand. Greater numbers of less educated honest people end up in the coal mines and behind sewing machines, if you get the picture. Corruption rules much. Show me a man who considers his profession righteous and I will show you a man who is steeped in deception, save disciples of Jesus in the ministry of course, but even some of them have turned out to be impostors, wolves in sheep^s clothing. Jesus was the only righteous man who ever lived and He made His living performing miracles and preaching the truth of the Kingdom of God. But of course we can^t all do that either, not the way society stands today.
The way of this world is not the way the world will live and be managed during the coming reign of Jesus Christ. Under the reign of Christ there will be no acceptable lies or deceptions. Every member of His kingdom will be trying to help others to the best of their ability, honestly and sincerely. There will be no lucrative schemes for slow death or slow or fast deterioration of wealth and property of unsuspecting victims. There will be no theft, not even coveting, allowed. There will be no blackmailing, intimidating or bribing without swift punishment and correction. It will not only be possible but required for people to make an honest living at a respectable career governed by honourable beings of merit, not impostors.
Those will be the days. Days when a man can earn a living by doing good, Godly good, not by selling drugs or writing fantasy or preaching deception but in telling the truth and lending a helping hand and giving good useful advice. Family farms will be common. Children will practise and develop useful helpful skills. Those are the days to look forward to. The days of old will look like a nightmare but will fade from memory in time.
Skills and talent will be developed to enhance many aspects of peoples lives in the future to a much greater degree than they do today. People will farm their own properties, plant and harvest their own crops, bake their own bread, make their own wine, even make their own music and entertainment much more than these things are being done today. Families will be much more self sufficient, a concept that is fast eroding and increasingly discouraged today. Hope lies in the future, a future in the Kingdom of God with Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The apostle Peter spoke of the most important skills that we Christians and all people aught to develop.
2 Peter 1:5 to 11 (NKJV)
... giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self~control, to self~control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2016 Jacques Gauvin