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Faithfulness

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 2, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 3.

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Faithfulness.

By W. H. Blaisdell

We often see persons enter the service of the Lord whose abilities are very limited. Perhaps their educational privileges have been very poor, and they may have had but very little intercourse with society. Their command of language may be very small, inasmuch that they can hardly express their ideas or feelings, when they arise to confess their need of Christ, and ask an interest in the prayers of God’s people. Their prayers may be so broken that none but the humble follower of Jesus would be interested in hearing them.
But they engage heartily in the work of the Lord, and cheerfully enter the school of Christ, to be his disciples, and learn of him who was “meek and lowly of heart.” They meekly take the yoke of Christ upon them, and are faithful with the little ability which they possess.
They strive hard to gain an education which they have hitherto failed to obtain; wherever opportunity is presented, whether in the social interview, the prayer-meeting, or at the family altar, their broken testimonies and prayers may be heard. Whenever opportunity for doing good is offered, they are among the first to embrace it. They remember the servant who received one talent, and “went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money,” and are determined that in the day of reckoning, it shall not be thus said of them.
A few years pass away, and what a visible change in them! As we listen to their touching exhortations, while they relate with clearness and intelligence, their experience in God’s service, their trials and victories, their temptations and overcomings, their sorrows and joys, and hear their humble, earnest prayers poured forth in faith to their Creator, and feel their softening, melting, and subduing influence, we would hardly think it possible that this is the same person, to whose stammerings we listened but a few years before.
Others engage in the Christian warfare under much more favorable circumstances, and meet with much less success.
They may have obtained a much better education, and their privileges for social intercourse may have been much more extended. Judging from their present abilities, we might expect them to soon become very useful in the cause of Christ. But instead of being faithful with the talents they possess, their future record shows them to be, not a faithful, but an unfaithful servant.
They neglect to gain a Christian education; many duties are neglected, and but few performed; many privileges for confessing Christ are presented, and but few improved; many opportunities for doing good are offered, and but few embraced; and when a few years have passed, we are surprised that they show even less ability than at first; and we almost wonder that one whose prospects were so promising in the beginning, had made no more progress in the service of the Lord. But the secret of the difference in the result of these two cases lies in the fact that one had been faithful, and the other, unfaithful.
By one, we are reminded of the servant who was faithful over a few things, and is destined to be made “ruler over many things.” By the other, we are reminded of the servant of whom it is said, “From him shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
And how will it stand with us all, when our Lord returns to reckon with his servants? Whose record has thus far been such that they can confidently claim the “well done”?
Let us remember that every disciple of Christ is required to be faithful, and no one is exempt from responsibility. We are “bought with a price,” and we should give ourselves entirely to the Lord. No talent or ability which we possess, is our own. The one whose means for doing good are very limited, is required to be faithful. The one who possesses five talents, is required to be faithful also.
Some possess talents in money, some in bodily health, and some in mental capacity. Some have the special ability to exhort, some to pray, and some to sing, all of which are very much needed by the church, in these days of spiritual darkness, wickedness, and peril.
Let each one be faithful in all respects; and let the weak ones, and those of humble ability and means, wait not, thinking that they will do nothing, because they have not the means with which to do more, but remember that “he that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.”
May we strive to live in such a manner, that the word Faithful, may be stamped upon the record of our every-day lives.
“We learn that the Saviour is coming full soon, Is he coming for me and for you? Shall we hear from the Saviour the welcome well done? Will he say it? and will it be true? Then we’ve something to do; we have something to do, There is something for Christians to do; If we hear from the Saviour the welcome well done, We have certainly something to do.”
W. H. BLAISDELL.