From the Parable of the Talents you must see the hand of God in it all, for he is the one who has entrusted all these things to you. And behind the hand of God, you must see his confidence in you, his trust, his optimism. God is the one who has called you to walk this path, and he is the one who has called you to walk it faithfully. 

The Parable of the Talents is one of the best-known and best-loved of all the parables Jesus left us. It tells of a man who is going on a journey and, who, before he sets out, distributes his wealth among his servants for safekeeping. To one he gives five talents, to another two, and to another just one. (A talent, for sake of context, is about 20 years’ of wages for a laborer.) It tells how each of these servants responds to what is entrusted to him: Two of the servants invest the money wisely and double it, while the other simply buries the money and then later returns it as-is. The first two receive their master’s approval while the third receives his condemnation.
This parable leads to many legitimate applications and often challenges us to be faithful with what the Lord has entrusted to us, whether that is the gospel itself, or the gifts, talents, money, responsibilities, or opportunities we have been given. God entrusts us with so much and it falls to us, as his servants, to be faithful with it all. We can expect that as we are faithful, we will know God’s approval and reward. “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance.”
Hidden in plain sight is a simple observation: the servants are never offered a choice in their stewardship. The master does not come to them to ask, “How much of my wealth do you think you’re capable of handling?” He never checks in to inquire, “How would you feel about being given the full five talents? Do you think you can handle five, or would you prefer to have just two?”
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Jesus’ offer of abundant life in John 10:10 means that to gain Him as your Shepherd is far and away the greatest thing that could ever happen to you. It means that anything this world may either give to you or take away from you doesn’t really matter that much, because a life awaits you beyond the present that greatly surpasses this one in every way.

Jesus’ mission statement in John 10:10 states, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” If your interpretation of “abundantly” doesn’t go beyond fine dining, designer clothes, or a luxury car, then you are missing His point. In fact, if you take it even further to include perfect health, the spouse of your dreams, and worldwide fame, you still fall far short of Jesus’ meaning. Jesus’ understanding of the abundant life is not your best life now. It is so much more.
To understand John 10:10, we must first enter Jesus’ analogy of sheep, shepherds, and thieves. In the analogy, God’s people are the sheep, Jesus is the shepherd, and the thieves are any who approach the sheep illegitimately and with ill-intent.
From the earliest books of the Bible, God’s people are compared to sheep (see Num. 27:17). As a result, this was already a well-known image by the time Jesus used it, and the image still applies today. In whatever time or place they may live, God’s people are sheep who need someone to care for them—to lead them to food and water, to rescue them when they wander away, and to defend them from wolves and thieves.
As for the thieves, their ranks include anyone who approaches God’s people without license or love. The thief doesn’t enter by the door, with the gate-keeper’s approval, but “climbs in by another way” (John 10:1). He hops the fence because he doesn’t have the right to be there, and he comes to do harm. He doesn’t care for the sheep. His purpose is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).
But no thief will succeed against the flock of the “good shepherd” (John 10:11). Whereas the thief comes to take life, the good shepherd stands ready to give it. But it is not the sheep’s lives that he gives. He gives his own: “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The good shepherd takes upon himself the harm that the thief intends for the sheep, and he neutralizes the threat. The sheep are no longer in danger of being killed, robbed, or destroyed.
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Satan hates godly, fruitful, multiplying, ruling, and subduing humans. He hates the Church that is taking back his territory. And he hates most fiercely covenant Christians who catechize their children.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Between these two quotes exists a powerful point. As it relates to Satan and the demonic realm, we must not dismiss, obsess, or live in ignorance of our greatest foe. Instead, as good soldiers of Christ, we must understand who our enemy is, what he hates most, and where that hatred is aimed in our society today.
A Crash Course on Satan
In the spirit of knowing our enemy well, here is a bare-bones summary of the prince of darkness.
He is called the devil, the dragon, a deceiver, the serpent, the prince and god of this world, and an “angel” who is in charge of the abyss (Revelation 9:11; 12:4,9, 13-14; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 6:15; Genesis 3:1-5, 13; John 12:31). He is chief among the fallen devils who were cast out of heaven for their rebellion against God (Revelation 12:9). Originally made as the most beautiful of all God’s angelic hosts (Ezekiel 28:12-19), he became the father of narcissism, enamored with his own beauty, a megalomaniac who wanted to elevate his throne over and above the Living God (Isaiah 14:12-15). He and his entire demonic horde of minions were cursed to slither along the face of the earth, like a starving pack of famished lions, seeking whomever they may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He is morally corrupted and evil to his rotten core (Matthew 13:19). He is a pathological liar and has been a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). He is a seditious schemer and slanderer extraordinaire (Ephesians 6:11; Job 1:9-11). All of this along with the fact that he disguises himself as an agent of light while secretly planning your demise (2 Corinthians 11:14). That is who Satan is.
In regards to what Satan does, he is ever working in opposition to the people of God (Job 2:1-7). He attempts to thwart angelic aid dispatched to us in times of need (Jude 9; Daniel 10:13-21). And he stands vigorously in defiance of all of God’s purposes (Matthew 16:23), His written and spoken Word (Matthew 13:3-19), and against God’s righteousness (1 John 3:7-10). He works for the exploitation of human weakness (Ephesians 4:26-27). He labors incessantly to ensure we fall away from God (1 Thessalonians 3:5). And, along with all of this, he is the chief accuser of humanity before the throne of God (Revelation 12:10).
What Satan Hates the Most
When you take all the verses in Scripture as a whole, you begin to see a malevolent spiritual being who salivates in searing hatred against humanity. After this dazzling creature was cast from the halls of heaven, God knelt down in the dust of the earth to craft a being to rule over and defeat him. As Satan stood from a distance, he watched with perfect hate that God would design such a feeble creature to be the one that rules him. The purest form of disgust washed over him as God imprinted His glorious image upon the soul of man. Blind fury consumed him as God breathed His life-giving breath into Adam’s lungs. Jealousy gripped the fallen spirit’s heart as man and woman, embodied creatures with an immaterial soul, communed in paradise with their God. A past time the cursed angel once enjoyed.
With the envy of a teenage girl whose darling former sugar muffin was now dating her bestie, Satan was driven into compulsive hatred. His jealousy propelled him into an unrelenting war against the man and the woman. He placed the crosshairs of his ire squarely on the shiny new couple, and all of their offspring forever. As man had been sculpted from the dust, Satan took on the body of a slithering serpent and snaked his way into the garden to eliminate his opposition.
Through his cunning and craftiness, he tricked the man and woman into vacating their thrones, abdicating their crowns, and being subject to his slavery and death forever. Like prisoners of war, Lucifer gleefully tortured the race of man, laughing every time they squealed, concentrating the lion’s share of his wrath to be aimed right at the center of their purpose. Since man was made to be fruitful, multiplying, ruling, and subduing, and the extenders of God’s dominion, Satan would attack their fruit, make them divisive, weak, and subjected, and the agents who build up his kingdom instead of God’s. Since men were made to be leaders in their homes and to hold fast to the commands, Satan would convince them to be weak, pathetic, passive, and disinterested in what God says. Since women were made to joyfully submit to her husband, build a home, and bear much fruit, Satan would work tirelessly to convince her to oppose her husband, abandon the home, and abandon her motherly instincts.
We must remember, it was Satan who came first to Eve, the one who would bear the race of serpent-crushing men. Under the influence of this unclean spirit, it was Cain who butchered human life, killing his brother in a fit of rage. It was the serpent-wearing Pharaoh who called for all the male children to be murdered in the Nile. It was the serpent-worshipping people of Canaan, who threw their children into the flames of Molech. And it was the maniac despot Herod, who worshiped the lord of darkness, by killing all the infants in Bethlehem. Throughout the Bible, Satan has been attacking the race of man, stealing, killing, and destroying everything man was called by God to be.
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