Faithfulness

Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. – 1 Corinthians 4.1-2

While doing some reading it hit me that I had somehow missed one whole section of chapter four. I debated going back and decided against it, except for one verse that I just couldn't skip.

The world measures success by who has the biggest house, the nicest car, the fattest bank account. Business measures success by size and profits and properties and office buildings.

So how do we measure success? How does the church measure success?

Is it by how many walked the aisle at special meetings? Is the number of professions of faith? (I was once is a church that kept of running total of every profession of faith by anyone associated with the church on the front wall of the church) Is it by the number of baptisms? Is it by how big the crowd is during church services? Is it by how big the mission budget is? Is it by how fancy the new building is? Is it by whether or not you can get Starbucks coffee in the family life centre?

What counts is how the Bible views success – ‘Let us consider, [not as the world, not as religious, but] as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. It is required in stewards that one be found faithful.’

God doesn’t measure our success the same way the world does. We need to be careful that we don’t decide which church or preacher or ministry is successful based on the world’s standards. God’s standard is enough.

But then we have to ask ourselves the really tough question – are we really and truly faithful to what God has called us to do? Only we ourselves can answer that question.