Faithfulness

Faithfulness is an interesting concept within the Christian community.  It seems that a great many believers consider the subject of faithfulness only in the areas of church attendance and tithe/offerings.  Could it be that church attendance and giving are only two symptoms of faithfulness?  What other symptoms might someone expect to find in one who is faithful?

Chuck Colson writes of being invited to preach at tough old San Quentin Prison, an opportunity he greatly anticipated and carefully planned for. Three hundred of the 2,200 inmates had agreed to come to the chapel to hear him. But just days before his arrival, officials uncovered a hidden cache of weapons, and the prison was immediately locked down with inmates confined to their cells.

When Colson arrived at the prison chapel, he was disheartened to find that only a handful of men were able to be present, and they were mostly Christians. His spirits flagged, for he had so hoped to preach the gospel to the unsaved. Struggling with a lack of enthusiasm, he thought Maybe I’ll just give a short devotional, ten minutes or so. I can’t really preach my heart out to this crowd.

But spotting a video camera in the far end of the room, he said to himself, Maybe this is being recorded for the chapel library. Maybe I’d better give it my all. He felt convicted for basing his morale and mood on the outer circumstances rather than the inner impulse of the Spirit, and so he preached with great fervor as though a thousand inmates were listening.

Later he mentioned to the prison chaplain how disappointed he had been to have missed sharing the gospel with the three hundred men who had originally signed up to attend. “Didn’t you know?” asked the chaplain. “Because of the lockdown, the administration agreed to videotape your sermon. They’ll be showing it to all the inmates tomorrow on closed-circuit television in the morning and again in the afternoon.”

In fact, the sermon was aired not just twice, but nearly a dozen times over the following weeks. Because of the lockdown, not just three hundred but all 2,200 prisoners heard the gospel.

Colson said that he learned three lessons from the incident:

• Mother Teresa is right. God calls us to faithfulness, not to success.

• When our goal is to change society, we often fail. When it is simple obedience to God, He blesses our efforts more than we can envision.
•  We should not grow weary in well-doing, for we shall reap a harvest if we faint not.

Situations and circumstances may not always be to our liking, but God has a wonderful way of using His faithful servants in and through those situations and circumstances.  Like Paul in Acts, we should anticipate God’s intentionality in doing something for the kingdom and His glory by creating opportunity in the difficulties of life.

God does not call for our solutions.  God calls for our faithfulness.  May all the symptoms of faithfulness be evident in us.

Pastor Stephen