My dog is faithful. He is always glad to see me.\u00a0He wags his tail and follows me around when I\u2019m home.\u00a0He seeks me out and sits by my feet.\u00a0He is loyal to me as his owner.\u00a0When I\u2019m gone he sleeps, waiting for me to come back.<\/p>\n
Is this an image of what it means to be faithful to God?\u00a0We are waiting for Jesus to come back.\u00a0If He were to come into our presence we\u2019d be glad to see Him.\u00a0We\u2019d wag our tails and follow Him around.\u00a0We\u2019d sit by His feet. We\u2019d be loyal to Him.\u00a0But what are we doing while He is gone?\u00a0Are we to sleep? Remember the ten virgins?<\/p>\n
The image of a faithful dog doesn\u2019t work for me.\u00a0I can\u2019t believe that Jesus wants us to sit around passive as a loyal, faithful dog until He comes back.<\/p>\n
Is there an image that Jesus left us about being faithful? Yes!\u00a0It\u2019s found in the story of the \u201ctalents\u201d in Matthew 25:14-30.\u00a0It has one of my \u201clife lines\u201d in it.\u00a0For me, a \u201clife line\u201d is a short phrase of what I want to live for. It motivates my life.\u00a0The line is: \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant.\u201d\u00a0 The master in the story spoke this to the servants who were faithful while he was gone on a long trip.\u00a0When he came back he discovered that while he was gone the \u201cgood and faithful\u201d servants had used the \u201ctalents\u201d he had given them in a productive way so that his holdings increased.<\/p>\n
Faithful Servants<\/strong><\/p>\n There was nothing passive about these servants. They were not sleeping dogs. Rather, they were filled with life.\u00a0 They were risk takers.\u00a0They were proactive and not reactive.\u00a0They attacked life. They lived life with gusto. They focused on the possibilities they had and not all the reasons they couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0They operated by faith and not by fear.\u00a0They enjoyed life, living each day to the fullest until the master got home.\u00a0They didn\u2019t make excuses.\u00a0They didn\u2019t blame others for life being hard.\u00a0They understood that the master had given them all they needed to be successful.\u00a0Destiny was in their hands.\u00a0Their attitudes made them good and faithful.They were filled with enthusiasm. They operated in joy.\u00a0They made an impact and a difference. They pleased and honored their master.<\/p>\n But, there was one servant who didn\u2019t produce. He was given the same opportunity.\u00a0He was given resources.\u00a0He was just as capable. He had the same amount of time.\u00a0But, he feared life and he feared his master. He didn\u2019t really long for him to come back. He expected his master to be hard on him so he acted out a scenario that assured it. He thought that if he just lived \u201csafe\u201d with no risks and no apparent failures then the master would be happy when he came back. He didn\u2019t want to make waves. He didn\u2019t want to be in the limelight. He\u2019d just play it safe and give the master back his \u201ctalent\u201d when he got home. Wrong choice!<\/p>\n In this parable the master wasn\u2019t happy with the servant who tried to play it safe. He was pleased with the servants who were willing to take risks.<\/p>\n So, what about us today? Are we faithful? Are we using what God has given us to the greatest capacity? Are we risk takers? Are we living with gusto? Are we attacking life and taking the kingdom by force? Are we positive? Are we controlled by faith? Are we enthusiastic? Are we joyful? Are we making a difference in the world around us? If so, I think, no, I know, that Jesus is pleased. He can hardly wait to come back and tell us\u2026 \u201cWell done, good and faithful servant(s)! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master\u2019s happiness\u201d (Matthew 25:21)! By Chad McComas. Copyright \u00a9 2006 by\u00a0GraceNotes<\/a>. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject tousage guidelines<\/a>. Scripture taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION \u00ae.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My dog is faithful. He is always glad to see me.\u00a0He wags his tail and follows me around when I\u2019m home.\u00a0He seeks me out and sits by my feet.\u00a0He is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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