It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.
Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions."
Matthew 24:45-47.
This passage is part of a parable about the Lord's coming; it emphasizes the necessity of faithfulness in those whom the Lord comes to meet.
There are those who have gone on to their reward, but some of us will be alive and remaining unto the the presence of the Lord.
The way we serve God now, in faithfulness, is of the utmost importance.
In Matthew 25, the Scripture continues telling about the end time and the Lord's coming.
It begins with the parable of the ten virgins, telling how they made preparation.
Next, the parable of the ten talents deals with the way God committed certain things to His servants.
Matthew 25:21 tells about the one who was faithful.
"His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.' "
There is no other way by which the Lord can evaluate your life except to put you through the chastening and the disciplines, the fiery furnace that must try you, and then to put you on the anvil and beat you.
By subjecting you to these things, He can literally mold and shape a normally unchangeable nature into His own image.
Sometimes you wish that there were other ways, and you may wonder why God could not have thought of an easier way to bring you into sonship.
But it pleases the Lord that whom He loves, He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives ( Hebrews 12:6 ) .
What causes a ministry t expand and grow?
It is not necessarily dependent on his ministering all the time.
There are men who have been building houses all their lives, yet have not improved the quality of their work at all, while others are diligently building better and better houses.
In any ministry it is not the capability or genius of the individual that matters; what counts is the way the individual responds to the testing fire of the Lord.
Only as you are found faithful under the dealings of the Lord does the ministry increase.
There is no other way.
The test of what you will receive in the Kingdom is based upon your faithfulness now.
When the Lord comes, He desires to find you faithful.
There is no other basis of judgment.
It could be very unfair of the Lord to reward people according to their I.Q., making smarter ones receive more and the dumber ones less.
It does not work like that because the Lord says He will take the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
Neither will He judge a man on the basis of his stamina or by how much work he can accomplish, because He will take the weak to confound the mighty ( I Corinthians 1:27 ) .
He has to judge us by our faithfulness.
If we are faithful before the Lord with a little, He promises to give us more.
As we are faithful to the Lord in a few things, He then makes us rulers over many.
When the Lord returns, He will judge your faithfulness; but your concept of faithfulness has to be viewed in the right sense.
The word "faithfulness' has an impersonal quality to it unless you associate it with personal relationships.
When you use the word "unfaithful" in regard to a relationship of a man and wife, immediately a picture is projected to your mind.
When some people think about unfaithfulness in the work of the Lord, they think of things like staying home from the church services and reading the funny papers.
However, the Lord is thinking about your relationship more in terms of a love affair that is going on between you and Him.
As you view it in those terms, then you begin to put it on the basis that God puts it on.
He looks upon those who are faithful as the ones who have a love life and a communion with Him.
This is more important than anything else.
A few Scriptures will convey God's idea of faithfulness.
II Corinthians 11:1-3:
I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness;but indeed you are bearing with me.
For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.
But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
Satan is always trying to cloud your relationship with the Lord.
I do not think the devil is really concerned about how much work you accomplish.
When you get sick and cannot perform a task that you usually do, such as cleaning the church, that is not critical; someone else can clean the church.
Satan wants to stop you from serving the Lord in faithfulness.
One might say the little details are insignificant.
Perhaps so, but when a husband brings his wife flowers, he is showing her something.
When he sees that she is tired, he may bring home a meal from a fast-food restaurant so that she will not have to cook.
He is showing his concern.
It is not really important what type of meal he brings home.
The details are not really the issue.
Whether the flowers are daisies or roses is not too important.
What is important is the constant expression of the man's devotion.
There is a faithfulness to that devotion.
He continually thinks about pleasing his wife.
When you come to worship God, it does not matter whether you sing a complicated psalm or not.
This is the issue: What is in your spirit?
Is there a faithfulness to the Lord?
Is there love and devotion in your heart?
From the beginning God has been looking for a people who would walk in the commandment:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength...
Mark 12:30
Paul said, "I have been jealous for you with a godly jealousy, I want you to be like the pure virgin in her first love to the Lord Jesus Christ."
In James 4:4 this same thought is expressed:
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?
Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
When you deal with the faithfulness that God will reward, you cannot tell Him that you love Him and then two-time Him.
You cannot have some other devotion in your life, some other interest that appeals to you so strongly that you are torn to follow it.
The Lord wants you to love Him, and He wants no rivals in your loyalties and affections.
He wants you to be devoted to Him above everything else.
It is not how much service you give to the Lord that matters, but the faithfulness of the love in your heart.
In the Old Testament it says that the Lord God is a God of knowledge and by Him actions are weighed ( I Samuel 2:3 ) .
He sees motivation.
He sees the depth of love that you have for the Lord.
Your eye has to be single.
You cannot have the duplicity that still loves the world.
When you love the world, it is spiritual fornication.
When you serve other things, even self, it displeases the Lord.
The book of Hose a is a chronicle of great tragedy, yet a beautiful truth comes out of it for our hearts.
At the command of the Lord, Hosea married Gomer, a woman who was literally a harlot.
She went after other lovers, and before long she was in complete control of a combination of men we would call "pimps" today.
A pimp is a man who brings customers to a prostitute.
In return, he is supposed to give her certain income as a prostitute, while he receives the lion's share of her income as a prostitute.
The word came to the brokenhearted Hosea, "Go down and purchase her back."
Hosea went down and bought her back from those who had become her masters.
She had literally become a slave to those who controlled her.
He married her again, and then God gave him the word that Isreal had committed whoredom.
The spirit of harlotry had been upon them, but the Lord considered Himself married to them.
Consequently, He received them back into His love.
Hosea was the prophet of love in the Old Testament, just as John was the apostle of love in the New Testament.
Some of the Old Testament books follow the same revelation and the same theme as certain New Testament books, and they should be read together.
Both the book of Hosea and the Gospel of John give us a tremendous picture of how much God loves us.
He is concerned that we be faithful as we come to serve Him.
When we receive a word from God, let there be a faithfulness and an integrity, that we count it as a bond and a contract that should never be violated by any unfaithful action or by anything in our spirits that would betray the Lord, as Israel did.
A spirit of harlotry has led them astray, and they have played the harlot, departing from their God.
Hosea 4:12.
The spirit of the harlot prostitutes a precious thing.
The most precious thing a woman can give the man she loves is her love and devotion, completely and perfectly.
A harlot wants to do something else; she sells her body for any man's lust and gratification.
In her heart there is not enough reward in just giving herself freely to her husband.
In her selfishness there are other things that she is more concerned about than belonging only to her husband.
In Revelations 17,18 and 19, when God describes what will happen in the end time, He describes two women.
One is called the mother of harlots, and we see her riding upon a great beast, which is symbolic of the kingdoms of this world.
As she rides upon that beast, it eventually turns and devours her; she is consumed.
That is the picture of apostate Christianity.
For them it is not enough to strive to please the Lord and send the gospel out to the ends of the earth.
They have to buy up oil companies, chain stores, and businesses, even the ammunition business.
The church of Laodicea says, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing."
But God says, "you know not that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked."
He counsels them to find that which is really precious: "Buy gold tried in the fire that you may be rich; white raiment that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness does not appear" ( Revelations 3:17,18 ) .
We are going to be a virtuous, holy people to the Lord.
We are not going to be a harlot pursuing everything else.
The greatest witness against denominational Christianity is that they have decided loyalties.
They are Babylon; they are pursuing other interests.
Do they love the Lord?
Yes, as Israel did in the Old Testament.
It is written that Israel feared the Lord and served her own gods ( II Kings 17:33 ) .
There was a mixture of loyalties.
The cry came in Hosea, "Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty.
Judgment will spring up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.
He shall break down their altars" ( Hosea 10:2,4 ) .
Why did God say that?
Did they not love the Lord?
Yes, but they also loved the world.
That is the mark of Babylon.
That is the mark of harlots.
A prostitute that is married may say that she loves her husband, but that does not alter the fact that she is still a harlot.
God sees mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots; but in one hour her judgments will come ( Revelation 18:17 ) .
In the nineteenth chapter of Revelation is a picture of another woman, the Bride.
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him:for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted tat she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
Revelation 19:7,8.
She is a beautiful virgin.
She comes up out of the wilderness of the tribulation unspotted, leaning on the arm of her beloved.
Although you may have many interests and responsibilities, yet in the time of crisis you will want to be like the three Hebrew children.
They were told that they would have to bow down and worship the image ( Daniel 3:14,15 ) .
They worshiped the Lord Jehovah; would it have mattered if just for a second they had bowed down to the image?
Daniel was told, "For a few days, Daniel, do not pray to anyone but the king. Just stop praying to your God."
But with windows opened towards Jerusalem, he continued crying to God ( Daniel 6 ) .
Daniel had nothing but complete devotion in his heart to the Lord.
From the beginning that young seventeen-year-old boy, a captive in Babylon, determined not to defile himself with the king's meat ( Daniel 1:8 ) .
He set his spirit to walk with God.
When our Master comes, He will be looking for faithfulness.
He may ask, "Were you faithful to the Word?
When you gave Me your heart, did you give Me all your heart?
Was there something else that caused you to fantasize and to yearn, to lust after the fleshpots of Egypt, after the things of this world?"
"You adulteresses," wrote James, "do you not know that the friendship of this world is enmity against God?
Who ever would be a friend of the world is an enemy of God" ( James 4:4 ) .
The Lord is calling you for a purpose.
Do not let the spirit of harlotry get into your spirit.
Many people come to the Lord out of a life of sin only to have the Lord reveal that He has given them a heart of a virgin, for their hearts are wholly set upon the Lord.
When you are not false and unfaithful to the Lord, you cannot be false or unfaithful to anyone else either.
God brings forth the pure spirit in you.
Do you love with all your heart?
Do not let the old nature betray you.
With an eye single to the glory of God, serve Him.
Desire to be a genuine believer and lover of the Lord.
In no way be a hypocrite or two-faced.
Be exactly what God called you to be.
Be faithful to Him.
Psalm 31:23,24 gives us a beautiful promise:
O love the Lord, all you His godly ones! The Lord preserves the faithful, and fully recompenses the proud doer.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord.
When the Lord comes, He will look for faithful servants.
He is the Bridegroom coming for the Bride.
He is not coming for the harlot, who loves the world and seeks after everything else.
He is coming for the virgin Bride whose heart is really set on Him.
Those who have this hope within them purify themselves, even as He is pure ( I John 3:3 ) .
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