Before KINGs.
king Solomon, the wisest king that ever lived in Proverbs 22:29 KJV, made this assertion, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men."
Diligence in service can take a man where skill and expertise won't.
There's no remedy for hard work, or better still, shall I aptly say "smart work."
In the world we live in consistency
will always be sought after just as excellence in service will.
We will always come across stories of how men endured in their pursuit of an endeavour and because of their dogged determination were able to etch their names and the purpose of their unswerving loyalty in the sands of time.
As people of God, our Almighty God and Father also requires that we be diligent in all our pursuits but unlike other earthly endeavours His desire is that we show forth such excellence in service so that as in Matthew 5: 16, people will see our good works, choose to follow in our footsteps and glorify Him as a result when they find out the real source of our motivation.
It is important that God's people are elevated to the point of being recognised by the high and mighty, not because it gives them an opportunity to curry their favour but because it gives them a platform to influence leadership with God's agenda concerning how men are governed.
The holy writ has several accounts of how prophets, priests, kings and even ordinary men have devoted their lives to God's service to the point of becoming reference points themselveswho those in authority seek to solve one issue or the other that they face.
Diligence in every endeavour one embarks upon, not for just personal aggrandisement or vain glory but for a purpose beyond oneself, so that other men by seeing ones godly work ethicswould desire to imitate ones lifestyle is God's will concerning His people and we can therefore ill-afford to put His name into disrepute by sloppy and half-hearted services we render.
Are you representing God Almighty in your endeavours as you ought?
Note that we are God's ambassadors whilst on this earth and we must always work at things with all our heart, as if we were directly serving God and not man as in Colossians 3:23 to 24, forit is God that promotes and one day we shall also be recalled to give account of our stewardship and accordingly rewarded for our service.
May the good Lord keep you hooked, tilted and built up in Him and give you the strength and tenacity to be His faithful soldier and servant until your lifes end as you show forth His glory and excellence in all your endeavours.
Shalom
The Faithful (3)
It is not enough for God's spirit to be in us and for us to be dormant in doing His will. We must be proactive.
Faith has these 2 components:
1. Complete confidence in God's Almighty Ability to save and provide, and
2. Our active believing by what we think, say and do as proof of the faith we claim we have and profess.
God's Commandments are geared towards helping us fulfill our own part of the CovenantHe has so graciously given us, which is our obligation to God and our neighbours.
In Mark 12: 28 - 31, when asked which of the commandments was the most important, Jesus replied the teacher thus:
29. “The most important one,”
..., “is this: 'Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
31. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.”
Our Faithfulness should be to God and therefore our fellow man as well.
The sequence was not a mistake either becauseyou cannot love your neighbor as yourself when you don't love the Lord God as you ought.
It is easier to love and therefore be faithful concerning Gods covenant to your wife because you are bound by the blood covenant that cements your union, and to your children because they are also a part of you - than a your neighbour who is not related to you by blood.
This is because our faithfulness to our neighbour requires us to have faith in God's Almighty ability - to give us the compassion we need to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.
Our faithfulness to God as in Deuteronomy 8: 10, 11 and 14, also requires that:
1. Whenever we have eaten and are satisfied, we must praise the Lord God for what he has given us.
2. We must be careful that we do not forget God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that has been handed down to us, and
3. That our hearts won't become proud and cause us to forget God, who brought us out of captivity and the slavery of sin.
Lack of Thanksgiving and forgetfulness because of the lust of the eyes, flesh and pride of life can erode ones faithfulness in our service to God.
We must guard against such by not gorging ourselves to the point that we eat and are satisfied, build fine houses and settle down, and as a result, allow the endowments God has given us to take care of others, become our gods.
There's a time for rest for God's people, His stewards, but there's no such thing as settling down and retirement in God's economy on earth.
As in John 9: 4, "As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent "us", "for" Night is coming, when no one can work."
When night comes then we'll rest.
The man who seeks settling down and retirement in God's economy should take heed of the reply of the watchman in Isaiah 21: 11 to 12.
He called out to the Watchman, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?” and the watchman reply was, “Morning is coming, but also the night. If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.”
Shalom
The Faithful (2)
Luke 12: 42 to 44, is a question to all God's creation, including you and I and it goes thus:
42. "..., Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time?
43. It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.
44. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
The Faithful are those who have come to the realization that they are but Stewards sent to this world to manage God's resources for the upkeep of His people.
They are wise enough to provide for the needs of God's people, whether saved or not, as and at when due, that He may entrust to them more of His possessions to dispense in a timely manner, knowing that they will be recalled one day to give an account of their management of the resources and their workmanship to the owner.
This concept of the "Faithful and Wise Steward" is the sole purpose for our existence.
In fact, the final analysis of the 2 categories of unfaithful servants is given in verse 47 to 48 of the same chapter, which goes thus:
47. “The servant who knows the master's will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.
48. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
This makes us understand that ignorance to one's godly purpose is not an excuse and everyone will give account and be rewarded for his stewardship, faithfulness or lack thereof according to what God has entrusted to him, so my friend, be faithful!
Shalom.
The Called, the Chosen and the Faithful - The Making of a Disciple.
3. The Faithful.
SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH:
The Faithful are those who by complete confidence in God and His word, obey God's Call on their lives to be set apart.
They have a witness in their spirit that they have indeed been chosen, and as a result, work out their own part of the privileged covenant God has given them, with fear and trembling, by faith in the one who has promised that He will keep them to the end.
Our Faithfulness is all about keeping our own end of the covenant by doing what we are supposed to do, when we are supposed to, propelled by faith in God's Word concerning usas in Ephesians 2: 8 to 9, which says:
8. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -
9. not by works, so that no one can boast."
TIME:
As with everything that concerns our short sojourn on this earth, God's call is time bound as in, Isaiah 55:6, where we are admonished thus:
"Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near."
We can ill-afford to put off God's call on our lives and risk our destinies been truncated abruptlyby the ancient enemy of our souls as in verse 7.
FAITHFUL OBEDIENCE BY PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP:
In Mark 4: 11, unlike the crowd that also heard, when Jesus was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him privately about the parables he had been telling them and the reply of Jesus was, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables."
How unfortunate the crowd that formed the majority of the people Jesus had spoken the parables to were at the end of the day not faithful enough to ensure they understood God's Word so that they may take it to heart, obey it and be blessed by it as a result.
What Jesus meant by what he said was that, the secret of the kingdom of God, that is theunderstanding of the parable he had spoken of that they may be able to apply heavens principles in their lives - on earth, can only be given to those on the inside, those who chose to be his disciple, and therefore make the extra sacrifice to go the extra mile to privately seek him for interpretation.
FAITHFUL WORKS:
For us to be Faithful, we need to purposefully ensure that we keep working out our salvation with fear and trembling by faith in His word.
Finally, in Joshua 1:8, it is written,
"Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
This all too important scripture can be paraphrased and Itemised thus to expansiate on what we need to do to be faithful stewards of the covenant God has called us into:
1. Keep confessing Gods law,
2. meditate on it always that
3. it may empower you to be careful to obey it to the letter, and
4. you will live a fulfilling life in prosperity and success as a result of your faithfulness.
Understanding God and His living Word gives birth to Faithfulness.
Shalom
The Called, the Chosen and the Faithful - The Making of a Disciple.
2. The Chosen.
In first Peter 1: 1 to 2, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, started his letter to the church thus:
"To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces .... who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ."
The Chosen, who are also referred to as "the Elect" are those who have been elected by God, not by works but by grace, by him who calls those things that are not as though they were, that His sovereign purpose in election might stand, to cultivate a relationship of complete confidence in Him as God Almighty, the maker and provider of all, and therefore live an abundant life on this earth and inherit an everlasting kingdom hereafter.
You know you have graduated to the rank of the Chosen of God, by your acceptance of Christ as Lord and Saviour and by your simple belief that the promises God made to his children accrue to you too as an equal heir, and therefore ascribing it to yourself by faith.
You most certainly won't get a verbal confirmation of you being chosen by God, like Jesus did in Matthew 17: 5, but you will surely have a witness in your Spirit of it.
In Genesis 15: 1 and 4 to 6,
God told Abraham these things in a vision:
1. “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.
2. ” ..., but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir,” and
3. That Abrams offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.
Abram believed all the Lord said, and God credited it to him as righteousness.
God still credits righteousness to those who are "Chosen."
An example of God's pronouncement concerning his people, that we can believe and act on by confessing it into our lives until we start to live it out, is 1 Peter 2: 9, which when paraphrased goes thus:
"But (I am) a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that (I) may declare the praises of him who called (me) out of darkness into his wonderful light."
Shalom
