Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Faithfulness = Success

From Mark and Maki:
"I also find that one of the things we don’t preach well is that ministry that looks fruitless is constantly happening in the Scriptures. We don’t do conferences on that. There aren’t too many books written about how you can toil away all your life and be unbelievably faithful to God and see little fruit this side of heaven."
-- Matt Chandler

He brings up the examples of:
1. Jeremiah
2. Moses not going into the promised land
3. John the Baptist not seeing the fulfillment of Jesus' work

Will you be faithful to your call, even when it seems fruitless? Are you committed to Jesus and His glory in your ministry, and not towards numbers? God is in charge of the results as long as we are simply obedient.

I recall my good friend and mentor as a college student, Jim Luebe, saying, "I just want to be a faithful laborer over time."

(HT: Vitamin Z)

2 comments:

David Cooke said...

A good reminder. Most of us don't want to sit like Moses for 40 years in Midian in preparation and fruitlessness. Spurgeon said if he had his time again he would spend a 'further 20 years in preparation'.

Jared said...

Wow. Good quote.

One of the things pushing us out of Midian prematurely is all the people telling us our ministry is a failure.

I know of leaders who give up because they didn't gather 100 people in their first year or consider their church plant a failure because after 2 years they "only" have 100 people.

We are such babies.