Near the end of his three-year ministry, Jesus was teaching His disciples about how the Kingdom of Heaven operates. In Matthew 25, He illustrates it by comparing it to a man who goes on a long trip. Before he leaves, he calls together three of his servants and gives each of them a sum of money to invest while he’s away.

He doesn’t give them each the same amount, but instead gives them different amounts according to their abilities. And then he leaves on his trip and is gone for a long time. You can read the full account of the story here.

When he returned from his trip, he called his servants “to give an account of how they had used his money.”

The servant who’d been given the most money (five bags of silver) to invest reported back that he’d doubled it. For that, he was praised by his master and was told, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”

The next servant, who’d been given two bags of silver, came and reported that he had also doubled the amount. And he is told the very same thing, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!“

Then the servant who’d been given the one bag of silver came and reported. He was afraid of losing the money so he didn’t invest it. Instead, he buried it in the ground.

The master isn’t pleased. He calls him a wicked and lazy servant. And then asks why the servant didn’t at least deposit the money in a bank, so he could have earned some interest on it. He then had the servant punished.

Now remember, Jesus is illustrating how He expects the Kingdom of Heaven to operate. Obviously, He is the man who gives His servants (you and me) different amounts of resources to invest while He’s gone. And when He returns, He’ll call us together to give an account for how we’ve invested what He gave us. We’ll either be rewarded, or not, based on what we did with what He gave us.

Let’s look at a few key points.

First, note that the servants were working with the Master’s money. Not their own. You and I own nothing. Everything we have, our time, our health, our abilities, our influence, our money, our possessions, our relationships, all belong to God.

Second, we haven’t all been given the same amount of resources. Some of us have more intelligence or money or abilities than others. We’ve been given different gifts and opportunities. And yet, we’ll all be called to give an account for how we invested what we’ve been given.

The servant who’d been given the two bags of silver was praised just as much as the servant who’d been given five bags. The amount of the return wasn’t the issue. What mattered was that they had each done the best with what they’d been given.

You and I will not be compared to others. We will be judged according to what we’ve been given.

Lastly, the servant who hid the money in the ground because he was afraid of the master was told he should have at least invested his amount by depositing it in the bank. In other words, by doing nothing with the resources He’d been given by the master, he was doing LESS THAN the least.

So what have YOU been entrusted with? And what are you doing with it to advance the Kingdom of Heaven?

One other question: if you’re married, what would it look like in 2015 to see your marriage as a resource or gift given to you by God?

Would it change how you treat your spouse? Do you think you might be more committed to sacrificing for each other? Would you be more willing to put your spouse’s needs before your own?

Maybe 2014 hasn’t been such a good year for you in terms of how you’ve invested your life. It doesn’t have to be that way in 2015.