Count Me Faithful

Does this statement ever rise within your heart? “I am just not good enough…” and you can fill in the blank. For example, “I just don’t think I am good enough to date him.”, “I don’t think I am good enough to do something like that”, “I am not that talented to do…” and the list goes on and on. We’ve each thought something along those lines at one point or another in our life.

Here recently, I’ve been in one of those really antsy, “I want a relationship” moods. You know, the moods that make you browse through more guy’s Instagram profiles than you’d like to admit? (guilty) or make you get lost in daydreaming more than is normal (guilty again)? Well maybe you’re one of those rare girls that has NEVER done that, but if I know most girls, I think we can all say that we’ve all been in this mood before!

Well, sometimes when I get in moods like this, I come across a guy (in person or on Instagram) that is just SO cute. You know, the ones that make you think, “Wow, why don’t I know you”, or “Why haven’t I seen you before?” The guys that not only have the looks, but also are serving the Lord and thriving! The ones that are completely sold out, so much so that their love for the Lord is seen whether in person or online! You know, the ones that make you question why the Lord sent you to a certain college, or made you live in a certain place, or made you stuck in this small town youth group, while all the cute guys who love Jesus are everywhere else?

This past week, all of the above has applied to me. Yes, I know, this is serious honesty time, but here it goes anyways! I’ve been in this mood AND I’ve seen a cute guy, but this small, thought arose within my heart as I scrolled through and saw this young man’s love for the Lord – “I could never date him…I am not good enough for him.” The more that I thought about it, the more I began to believe it.

That one thought then led to multiple others like, “Your love for the Lord isn’t like his…”, “You’re not that deep…”, “You can’t do what he is doing for the Lord right now…”, “You need to grow a lot more before you could ever consider a guy like him”, “What makes you think your walk with the Lord is where it needs to be in order to date a guy like him?” Each thought gnawed at my heart, and eventually I just believed that it was truth. I needed to be a certain way, reach a certain level, become a certain type of Christian, before I could ever consider someone like that.

Well, today I whipped out my Bible and began reading in Nehemiah. As I read, one word stuck out to me. What’s funny is the word really wasn’t a key word and really didn’t have anything to do with what I was reading; but yet it stuck out to me. That word was “faithful”. Those statements that I had allowed to rise up within my heart came flooding to the forefront of my mind as God gently whispered to me… “All I require of you is to be faithful.”

We’ve got it so backwards don’t we! We feed ourselves these lies that we need to become a certain thing or do a certain thing in order for someone to be pleased or to be so-called “worthy” of someone, but yet if we would just focus on God, He just asks one thing of us! He just wants us to be faithful!

Ok, so maybe you can’t do all those things that you find in someone else, maybe you aren’t gifted in those areas, but WHERE OR WHAT CAN YOU DO? That’s what God cares about! He cares about what He has uniquely gifted YOU to do for His kingdom, not what He has uniquely gifted someone else to do.

Once, you find what He has gifted you to do, be faithful in it! Do it with all of your might! Pour your heart and soul into it! Do it to please an audience of One! Give it all you got because you’re in the presence of the King of Kings!

And that, my dear, is what makes you “good enough” (which technically WE can never be good enough in the sight of God, but that’s a different sermon). No amount of talents or gifts could ever measure up to what faithfulness has in the sight of God!

In Matthew 25, the Lord paints a picture of a moment that will one day occur in the realms of heaven. It is a parable that describes what will happen when God greets His servants for the first time and rewards them for their work on earth. I bet you have read it countless times, but I wonder if you’ve ever noticed one little adjective before the word servant.

It says, “Well done thou good and FAITHFUL servant…” (Matt.21:25) Notice the Bible doesn’t say anything about what the position the servant served in, only the manner in which the servant served! It doesn’t matter to God whether you are preaching to an auditorium of a thousand, if you are teaching a group a five year olds, if you do janitorial work, if you work nursery, if you work on a bus route, or if you sing. It’s all for Him and His glory! He only cares that you are faithful in that work for Him!

David was a seemingly unimportant little lad. He was the youngest of his brothers and all he did was keep the sheep! I am sure that keeping the sheep took lots of time and work and that it got extremely boring, but yet he was faithful! That little boy watched, fed, groomed, and took care of that flock every single day. Then one day, that little boy who kept the brainless sheep grew into a young man who was “keeping” the kingdom of Israel as their king!

Guys, whatever work you are doing for the Lord, even if it is as boring as watching sheep, give it all you got and be faithful to it! Watch that flock, feed it, groom it, and take care it with every fiber of your being, and the Lord will bless you because of it! Faithfulness is the key! May it be our prayer for the Lord to be able to “count us faithful…” (1 Timothy 1:12) in whatever work He has given us to do.