Matthew 25:23
His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'
Well hello there my friends! It's a great day to be alive. If I do say so myself. I pray that you all are really taking advantage of this time to become reacquainted with the fruit of the spirit. If you haven't yet, please catch the wave! I would like to consider myself as someone who's come up on the cheat codes for the type of tests that are inevitable for us believers.
Just so y'all know though, I get treated probably everyday because of and by this stuff. That's why I don't mind showing what I've gained so I can help people pass these tests. Yadig!
It's still been a heck of ride to say the least.
So this week we are going to parlay with the fruit of FAITHFULNESS. It's the seventh one in the bunch. And it's kind of sweet. It's sweet because if you have all of the others we discussed in place, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, and goodness, then remaining faithful can be almost effortless.
Faithfulness is associated with, fidelity, loyalty, constancy, commitment, and devotion. It's the fruit that reminds us that if we pull out of a thing too soon, all of the work we put in prior goes in vain. Yet if we consistently stick to a thing, every minute will prove worth it. It's being full of the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
The reason why it's such an important fruit to possess is because this journey in God is not always going to be peachy keen. It's going to require some faithfulness to get you through to the other side even if the current outlook is bleak.
But if Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23, that all things are beneficial but not all things are constructive, how do you know you're being faithful to a cause that just appears beneficial and is definitely not constructive?
Because there is a such thing as being faithful to the wrong things or to the right things for the wrong reasons!
In the book of Genesis (11:1-9), Nimrod and a host of other men conspired to build a tower that reached the heavens. That tower was called Babel. Now I decided to look up the etymology for the name Babel and it means,
"Gate of God."
Well would you look at that?
If you're not familiar with this account, these men were committed to the completion of this tower and they dang near succeeded before God shut that operation down, IMMEDIATELY. Why did He do that?
Simple! The answer lies right in the beginning of this chapter where they said in verse 4, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves..."
Really now?
They were not building this monstrosity to give glory to God despite its namesake. NOR were they trying to get close to God.
Hence why God halted the process and scattered them abroad.
And they were descendants of Noah. So it appears to me that they plagiarized Noah's methods of faithfulness upon him building the ark but failed to transfer over his heart and spirit of faithfulness which is what carried him through to complete the ark. It took him years to build that thing and he wouldn't have made it had his heart been in the wrong place.
Speaking of Noah, let's pretend as if Noah's heart was in the wrong place and he'd managed to complete the ark. I highly doubt, that ark would have made it through the flood.
Faithfulness to a cause rooted in the right motives, automatically will see longevity.
Crooked hearted faithful people have to keep doing crooked things in order to maintain what they're doing, if what they're doing doesn't eventually collapse.
People will use the appearance of faithfulness to forge the signature of God on something they're building that has nothing to do with Him and God will dispute this by snatching His name right off of it. Leaving the only name left to call it, Ichabod (def. no glory, inglorious or where is the glory?)
A name only suitable when the grace of God has been lifted.
Alright, we've just started ladies and gentlemen. Get comfortable.
So, there were some people who were faithful to a cause and had the right heart and motives which enabled them to produce something that not only lasted a few generations but was also so powerful that if handled improperly, resulted in DEATH!
In the 25th chapter and the 10th verse of the book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to build an ark. Y'all thought Noah was the only that had to activate his young Bob the Builder skills to build an ark? Nope.
Moses had to build one too.
But this ark wasn't a boat. It was a gold chest which would represent the covenant between God and the children of Israel and it contained the stone tablets of the 10 commandments.
This passage included the description of the amount of details that went into creating this ark. It wasn't to be some random generic chest and you couldn't approach it like it was either. The level of faithfulness that was poured into this chest made it sacred.
True faithfulness sanctifies you and whatever you're doing.
True faithfulness is carried out through obedience.
The more you obey, the more faithful you become. People that make it a habit of obeying God's commands and instructions grow in their fruit of faithfulness. Obedience is the underbelly of true faithfulness.
People can be either faithful in their rebellion or faithful in their obedience.
However, it isn't recognized by God until it is faithful in obedience.
Which therefore leads us here, GOT TALENT?
In Matthew 25:23 we have three men and 8 talents or little bags of gold. One man was given 5 talents by his master, the second man was given 2, and the third man was given 1. Each were given said amounts, based off of ability not favoritism.
I had to put that last part out there.
Now the master went away for a moment and as he was gone, the man with 5 talents and the man with 2 talents went and invested them and received a double return.
The man that had one talent, buried his.
When the master came back he was notified by the man with 5 talents and the man with 2 talents of the returns they'd received from their investments. He responded to both of them, "Well done my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few. I will make you ruler over much. Enter into the joy of the Lord."
But the man who buried his one talent did not receive the same accolades nor such invitation. His master actually called him evil and lazy.
The man basically told his master upon his return that he was afraid that if he invested the one talent he would have lost it and knowing what hard work his master completed to earn this talent he didn't want that to happen so he buried it instead.
Why did he receive such a harsh rebuke then?
Look closer at the rebuke. The master called the man evil and lazy. He didn't check the man's fear nor his ignorance. He blasted the man's heart and his motive. His evilness and his laziness. Him burying the talent was proof that he was looking out for himself.
He was going to keep that talent for himself had the master not come back which is why he buried it. And going to town with the other two men to potentially flip what he had was too risky and too much work for HIM. He would have rather kept the one talent for himself than risk losing it, only to be left with nothing.
His explanation was a cop out and his master sniffed him out.
Though this was a parable Jesus shared with His disciples in regard to the kingdom of God, the life application for us is this,
God has sown treasures in all us that we are to be faithful in stewarding. There is a path in Him, that He's set before us that we are charged to faithfully pursue. There are designated assignments along this path that we are to practice the fruit of faithfulness in order to fulfill.
In every three facets comes rewards, one that is entrusted to us as we invest, one that is bequeathed to us as we die to self, and one that comes as we grow.
I have absolutely no idea what these rewards look like per person. I do know that God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). And because I don't want anyone to walk away from this post assuming that they have to WORK for these rewards. I must inform you that the fruit of faithfulness is not a works based fruit. None of the fruits are really.
At the end of the day, it's not even about the rewards. It's a call and response fruit.
As God calls, we respond in our fruit of faithfulness.
It's the reflection of how faithful God is to us, that we should desire to express to Him.
And this my beautiful friends is why this fruit is sooooo sweet!
Just so y'all know though, I get treated probably everyday because of and by this stuff. That's why I don't mind showing what I've gained so I can help people pass these tests. Yadig!
It's still been a heck of ride to say the least.
So this week we are going to parlay with the fruit of FAITHFULNESS. It's the seventh one in the bunch. And it's kind of sweet. It's sweet because if you have all of the others we discussed in place, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, and goodness, then remaining faithful can be almost effortless.
Faithfulness is associated with, fidelity, loyalty, constancy, commitment, and devotion. It's the fruit that reminds us that if we pull out of a thing too soon, all of the work we put in prior goes in vain. Yet if we consistently stick to a thing, every minute will prove worth it. It's being full of the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
The reason why it's such an important fruit to possess is because this journey in God is not always going to be peachy keen. It's going to require some faithfulness to get you through to the other side even if the current outlook is bleak.
But if Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23, that all things are beneficial but not all things are constructive, how do you know you're being faithful to a cause that just appears beneficial and is definitely not constructive?
Because there is a such thing as being faithful to the wrong things or to the right things for the wrong reasons!
In the book of Genesis (11:1-9), Nimrod and a host of other men conspired to build a tower that reached the heavens. That tower was called Babel. Now I decided to look up the etymology for the name Babel and it means,
"Gate of God."
Well would you look at that?
If you're not familiar with this account, these men were committed to the completion of this tower and they dang near succeeded before God shut that operation down, IMMEDIATELY. Why did He do that?
Simple! The answer lies right in the beginning of this chapter where they said in verse 4, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves..."
Really now?
They were not building this monstrosity to give glory to God despite its namesake. NOR were they trying to get close to God.
Hence why God halted the process and scattered them abroad.
And they were descendants of Noah. So it appears to me that they plagiarized Noah's methods of faithfulness upon him building the ark but failed to transfer over his heart and spirit of faithfulness which is what carried him through to complete the ark. It took him years to build that thing and he wouldn't have made it had his heart been in the wrong place.
Speaking of Noah, let's pretend as if Noah's heart was in the wrong place and he'd managed to complete the ark. I highly doubt, that ark would have made it through the flood.
Faithfulness to a cause rooted in the right motives, automatically will see longevity.
Crooked hearted faithful people have to keep doing crooked things in order to maintain what they're doing, if what they're doing doesn't eventually collapse.
People will use the appearance of faithfulness to forge the signature of God on something they're building that has nothing to do with Him and God will dispute this by snatching His name right off of it. Leaving the only name left to call it, Ichabod (def. no glory, inglorious or where is the glory?)
A name only suitable when the grace of God has been lifted.
Alright, we've just started ladies and gentlemen. Get comfortable.
So, there were some people who were faithful to a cause and had the right heart and motives which enabled them to produce something that not only lasted a few generations but was also so powerful that if handled improperly, resulted in DEATH!
In the 25th chapter and the 10th verse of the book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to build an ark. Y'all thought Noah was the only that had to activate his young Bob the Builder skills to build an ark? Nope.
Moses had to build one too.
But this ark wasn't a boat. It was a gold chest which would represent the covenant between God and the children of Israel and it contained the stone tablets of the 10 commandments.
This passage included the description of the amount of details that went into creating this ark. It wasn't to be some random generic chest and you couldn't approach it like it was either. The level of faithfulness that was poured into this chest made it sacred.
True faithfulness sanctifies you and whatever you're doing.
True faithfulness is carried out through obedience.
The more you obey, the more faithful you become. People that make it a habit of obeying God's commands and instructions grow in their fruit of faithfulness. Obedience is the underbelly of true faithfulness.
People can be either faithful in their rebellion or faithful in their obedience.
However, it isn't recognized by God until it is faithful in obedience.
Which therefore leads us here, GOT TALENT?
In Matthew 25:23 we have three men and 8 talents or little bags of gold. One man was given 5 talents by his master, the second man was given 2, and the third man was given 1. Each were given said amounts, based off of ability not favoritism.
I had to put that last part out there.
Now the master went away for a moment and as he was gone, the man with 5 talents and the man with 2 talents went and invested them and received a double return.
The man that had one talent, buried his.
When the master came back he was notified by the man with 5 talents and the man with 2 talents of the returns they'd received from their investments. He responded to both of them, "Well done my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few. I will make you ruler over much. Enter into the joy of the Lord."
But the man who buried his one talent did not receive the same accolades nor such invitation. His master actually called him evil and lazy.
The man basically told his master upon his return that he was afraid that if he invested the one talent he would have lost it and knowing what hard work his master completed to earn this talent he didn't want that to happen so he buried it instead.
Why did he receive such a harsh rebuke then?
Look closer at the rebuke. The master called the man evil and lazy. He didn't check the man's fear nor his ignorance. He blasted the man's heart and his motive. His evilness and his laziness. Him burying the talent was proof that he was looking out for himself.
He was going to keep that talent for himself had the master not come back which is why he buried it. And going to town with the other two men to potentially flip what he had was too risky and too much work for HIM. He would have rather kept the one talent for himself than risk losing it, only to be left with nothing.
His explanation was a cop out and his master sniffed him out.
Though this was a parable Jesus shared with His disciples in regard to the kingdom of God, the life application for us is this,
God has sown treasures in all us that we are to be faithful in stewarding. There is a path in Him, that He's set before us that we are charged to faithfully pursue. There are designated assignments along this path that we are to practice the fruit of faithfulness in order to fulfill.
In every three facets comes rewards, one that is entrusted to us as we invest, one that is bequeathed to us as we die to self, and one that comes as we grow.
I have absolutely no idea what these rewards look like per person. I do know that God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). And because I don't want anyone to walk away from this post assuming that they have to WORK for these rewards. I must inform you that the fruit of faithfulness is not a works based fruit. None of the fruits are really.
At the end of the day, it's not even about the rewards. It's a call and response fruit.
As God calls, we respond in our fruit of faithfulness.
It's the reflection of how faithful God is to us, that we should desire to express to Him.
And this my beautiful friends is why this fruit is sooooo sweet!
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