Matthew 24:45-51
”Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
December 15, 2021 Throughout the Bible God is always looking for faithful, persevering, persistent and patient servants. In this day and age when everything is so fast and instantaneous, people are always looking for short cuts and quick outcomes. However, the essence of mission and the essence of ministry throughout the Bible is faithfulness. Starting from the time we were created, God is always looking for fruitfulness in our life — and the bedrock of fruitfulness is faithfulness. In this text Jesus is clearly speaking about the relationship between time, dedication, commitment and more importantly, faith. The combination of all these virtues is going to produce faithful, persevering and persistent servants. When people are looking for fame in exchange for faithfulness, and results in exchange for perseverance, their ministry is going to be short lived. In mission and in ministry it’s inevitable that we are going to face a lot of challenges and problems. In the middle of all these challenges and problems we have to fix our eyes on Jesus who is the beginner and the finisher of our calling. The most tragic thing in the mission and ministry of many called, ordained, commissioned and deployed missionaries is to see their ministry cut short and come back from the mission field with a sense of failure. Failure is not measured by the amount of fruit we produce or by the kind of result we get, but failure is ultimately lack of faithfulness and lack of faith in the everlasting grace of God. The greatest remedy for those problems is having a dedicated life of prayer, commitment to daily reading of the Scriptures and, more importantly, relying on and absolutely trusting in the ever-living grace of God.