If we thank our heavenly King and praise him and serve him, we still owe him far more than we can ever repay. The final lines of verse 21 put us all in our place. No matter how much good we do, we are still, in the end, “unprofitable servants”; or as Stephen Robinson, our colleague in Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, has said, “in a sense, we are all bad investments.” We can never get God in our debt. The more we obey and serve him and others, the more he prospers us. We are always indebted to him, for our very breath even, to stay alive day to day—then how could anyone boast? How could anyone become proud? Proud of what? Without him, we are not even worth as much as the dust of the earth. Verse 34 reminds us: “Ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father, to render to him all that you have and are.” That is a consecrated life, what the Father expects of every one of his children who will become as he is. This is the same teaching presented by Jesus during his mortal ministry (Luke 17:5–10).
“Yet Ye Would Be Unprofitable Servants”
If we thank our heavenly King and praise him and serve him, we still owe him far more than we can ever repay. The final lines of verse 21 put us all in our place. No matter how much good we do, we are still, in the end, “unprofitable servants”; or as Stephen Robinson, our colleague in Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, has said, “in a sense, we are all bad investments.” We can never get God in our debt. The more we obey and serve him and others, the more he prospers us. We are always indebted to him, for our very breath even, to stay alive day to day—then how could anyone boast? How could anyone become proud? Proud of what? Without him, we are not even worth as much as the dust of the earth. Verse 34 reminds us: “Ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father, to render to him all that you have and are.” That is a consecrated life, what the Father expects of every one of his children who will become as he is. This is the same teaching presented by Jesus during his mortal ministry (Luke 17:5–10).