Topic : Faithfulness, cf. perseverance, endurance

Let it never be forgotten that glamour is not greatness; applause is not fame; prominence is not eminence. The man of the hour is not apt to be the man of the ages. A stone may sparkle, but that does not make it a diamond; people may have money, but that does not make them a success.

It is what the unimportant people do that really counts and determines the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers are more effective than hurricanes, but they get no publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty, and consecration of those whose names are unhonored and unsung. - James R. Sizoo

Bits & Pieces, June 22, 1995, p. 11.

One of the most tragic events during the Reagan Presidency was the Sunday morning terrorist bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, in which hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded as they slept. Many of us can still recall the terrible scenes as the dazed survivors worked to dig out their trapped brothers from beneath the rubble.

A few days after the tragedy, I recall coming across an extraordinary story. Marine Corps Commandant Paul X Kelly, visited some of the wounded survivors then in a Frankfurt, Germany, hospital. Among them was Corporal Jeffrey Lee Nashton, severely wounded in the incident. Nashton had so many tubes running in and out of his body that a witness said he looked more like a machine than a man; yet he survived.

As Kelly neared him, Nashton, struggling to move and racked with pain, motioned for a piece of paper and a pen. He wrote a brief note and passed it back to the Commandant. On the slip of paper were but two words—“Semper Fi” the Latin motto of the Marines meaning “forever faithful.”

With those two simple words Nashton spoke for the millions of Americans who have sacrificed body and limb and their lives for their country—those who have remained faithful.

Children at Risk, J. Dobson & Gary Bauer, Word, 1990, pp. 187-188.

Clarence Jordan was a man of unusual abilities and commitment. He had two Ph.D.s, one in agriculture and one in Greek and Hebrew. So gifted was he, he could have chosen to do anything he wanted. He chose to serve the poor.

In the 1940s, he founded a farm in Americus, Georgia, and called it Koinonia Farm. It was a community for poor whites and poor blacks. As you might guess, such an idea did not go over well in the Deep South of the ’40s. Ironically, much of the resistance came from good church people who followed the laws of segregation as much as the other folk in town. The town people tried everything to stop Clarence. They tried boycotting him, and slashing workers’ tires when they came to town. Over and over, for fourteen years, they tried to stop him.

Finally, in 1954, the Ku Klux Klan had enough of Clarence Jordan, so they decided to get rid of him once and for all. They came one night with guns and torches and set fire to every building on Koinonia Farm but Clarence’s home, which they riddled with bullets. And they chased off all the families except one black family which refused to leave.

Clarence recognized the voices of many of the Klansmen, and, as you might guess, some of them were church people. Another was the local newspaper’s reporter. The next day, the reporter came out to see what remained of the farm. The rubble still smoldered and the land was scorched, but he found Clarence in the field, hoeing and planting.

“I heard the awful news,” he called to Clarence, “and I came out to do a story on the tragedy of your farm closing.” Clarence just kept on hoeing and planting. The reporter kept prodding, kept poking, trying to get a rise from this quietly determined man who seemed to be planting instead of packing his bags. So, finally, the reporter said in a haughty voice, “Well, Dr. Jordan, you got two of them Ph.D.s and you’ve put fourteen years into this farm, and there’s nothing left of it at all. Just how successful do you think you’ve been?”

Clarence stopped hoeing, turned toward the reporter with his penetrating blue eyes, and said quietly but firmly, “About as successful as the cross. Sir, I don’t think you understand us. What we are about is not success but faithfulness. We’re staying. Good day.”

Beginning that day, Clarence and his companions rebuilt Koinonia and the farm is going strong today.

Holy Sweat, Tim Hansel, 1987, Word Books Publisher, pp.188-189

The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgment Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to gray and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And as some men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Colonel Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought.”

Winning the New Civil War, Robert P. Dugan, Jr., p. 183

Consider Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote in 1762 the classic treatise on freedom, The Social Contract, with its familiar opening line: “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

But the liberty Rousseau envisioned wasn’t freedom from state tyranny; it was freedom from personal obligations. In his mind, the threat of tyranny came from smaller social groupings—family, church, workplace, and the like. We can escape the claims made by these groups, Rousseau said, by transferring complete loyalty to the state. In his words, each citizen can become “perfectly independent of all his fellow citizens” through becoming “excessively dependent on the republic.”

This idea smacks so obviously of totalitarianism that one wonders by what twisted path of logic Rousseau came up with it. Why did he paint the state as the great liberator'

Historian Paul Johnson, in his book Intellectuals, offers an intriguing hypothesis. At the time Rousseau was writing The Social Contract, Johnson explains, he was struggling with a great personal dilemma.

An inveterate bohemian, Rousseau had drifted from job to job, from mistress to mistress. Eventually, he began living with a simple servant girt named Therese. When Therese presented him with a baby, Rousseau was, in his own words, “Thrown into the greatest embarrassment.” His burning desire was to be received into Parisian high society, and an illegitimate child was an awkward encumbrance.

Friends whispered that unwanted offspring were customarily sent to a “foundling asylum.” A few days later, a tiny, blanketed bundle was left on the steps of the local orphanage. Four more children were born to Therese and Jean-Jacques; each one ended up on the orphanage steps.

Records show that most of the babies in the institution died; a few who survived became beggars. Rousseau knew that, and several of his books and letters reveal vigorous attempts to justify his action.

At first he was defensive, saying he could not work in a house “filled with domestic cares and the noise of children.” Later his stance became self-righteous. He insisted he was only following the teachings of Plato: hadn’t Plato said the state is better equipped than parents to raise good citizens'

Later, when Rousseau turned to political theory, these ideas seem to reappear in the form of general policy recommendations. For example, he said responsibility for educating children should be taken away from parents and given to the state. And his ideal state is one where impersonal institutions liberate citizens from all personal obligations.

Now, here was a man who himself had turned to a state institution for relief from personal obligations. Was his own experience transmuted into political theory? Is there a connection between the man and the political theorist'

It is risky business to try to read personal motives. But we do know that to the end of his life Rousseau struggled with guilt. In his last book, he grieved that he had lacked, in the words of historian Will Durant, “the simple courage to bring up a family.”

Christianity Today, “Better a Socialist Monk than a Free-market Rogue? by Charles Colson, p. 104

Mark Hatfield tells of touring Calcutta with Mother Teresa and visiting the so-called “House of Dying,” where sick children are cared for in their last days, and the dispensary, where the poor line up by the hundreds to receive medical attention. Watching Mother Teresa minister to these people, feeding and nursing those left by others to die, Hatfield was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the suffering she and her co-workers face daily. “How can you bear the load without being crushed by it?” he asked. Mother Teresa replied, “My dear Senator, I am not called to be successful, I am called to be faithful.”

Beyond Hunger, Beals

Charles Spurgeon preached to thousands in London each Lord’s Day, yet he started his ministry by passing out tracts and teaching a Sunday school class as a teenager. When he began to give short addresses to the Sunday school, God blessed his ministry of the Word. He was invited to preach in obscure places in the country side, and he used every opportunity to honor the Lord. He was faithful in the small things, and God trusted him with the greater things. “I am perfectly sure,” he said, “that, if I had not been willing to preach to those small gatherings of people in obscure country places, I should never have had the privilege of preaching to thousands of men and women in large buildings all over the land. Remember our Lord’s rule, “whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 221

Norman Geisler, as a child, went to a DVBS because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395? What if the bus driver had said, “This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?”

God Came Near, Max Lucado, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 133

One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. “But I can’t send a fine couple like you out in the rain,” he said. “Would you be willing to sleep in my room?” The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, “You’re the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I’ll build you one.” The clerk smiled politely.

A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building.

“That,” explained the man, “is the hotel I have built for you to manage.” The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria. The young clerk, George C. Boldt, became its first manager.

Our Daily Bread

Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, caught the practical implications of consecration. “To give my life for Christ appears glorious,” he said.

“To pour myself out for others … to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom—I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory. “We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table—‘Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.’ But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.

Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.”

- Darryl Bell

Source unknown

An elderly preacher was rebuked by one of his deacons one Sunday morning before the service. “Pastor,” said the man, “something must be wrong with your preaching and your work. There’s been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he’s just a boy.”

The minister listened, his eyes moistening and his thin hand trembling. “I feel it all,” he replied, “but God knows I’ve tried to do my duty.” On that day the minister’s heart was heavy as he stood before his flock. As he finished the message, he felt a strong inclination to resign.

After everyone else had left, that one boy came to him and asked, “Do you think if I worked hard for an education, I could become a preacher—perhaps a missionary?”

Again tears welled up in the minister’s eyes. “Ah, this heals the ache I feel,” he said. “Robert, I see the Divine hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a preacher.”

Many years later an aged missionary returned to London from Africa. His name was spoken with reverence. Nobles invited him to their homes. He had added many souls to the church of Jesus Christ, reaching even some of Africa’s most savage chiefs. His name was Robert Moffat, the same Robert who years before had spoken to the pastor that Sunday morning in the old Scottish kirk.

Lord, help us to be faithful. Then give us the grace to leave the results to you.

Source unknown

I recently read about an old man, walking the beach at dawn, who noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth, he asked what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left in the morning sun. ‘But the beach goes on for miles and miles, and there are millions of starfish,’ countered the man. ‘How can your effort make any difference?’

The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. ‘It makes a difference to this one,’ he said.” Hugh Duncan,

Leadership Journal

• Don’t waste your time waiting and longing for large opportunities which may never come. But faithfully handle the little things that are always claiming your attention. - F. B. Meyer

Source unknown

It was a stormy night in Birmingham, England, and Hudson Taylor was to speak at a meeting at the Seven Street schoolroom. His hostess assured him that nobody would attend on such a stormy night, but Taylor insisted on going. “I must go even if there is no one but the doorkeeper.” Less than a dozen people showed up, but the meeting was marked with unusual spiritual power. Half of those present either became missionaries or gave their children as missionaries; and the rest were faithful supporters of the China Inland Mission for years to come.

Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 242

Polycarp (A.D. 70-155) was bishop of Smyrna and a godly man. He had known the apostle John personally. When he was urged by the Roman proconsul to renounce Christ, Polycarp said: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?” “I have respect for your age,” said the official. “Simply say, ‘Away with the atheists!’ and be set free.” The aged Polycarp pointed to the pagan crowd and said, “Away with the atheists!” He was burned at the stake and gave joyful testimony of his faith in Jesus Christ.

Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 214

Norman Geisler, as a child, went to a DVBS because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395?

What if the bus driver had said, “This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?”

God Came Near, Max Lucado, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 133

One stormy night an elderly couple entered the lobby of a small hotel and asked for a room. The clerk said they were filled, as were all the hotels in town. “But I can’t send a fine couple like you out in the rain,” he said. “Would you be willing to sleep in my room?” The couple hesitated, but the clerk insisted. The next morning when the man paid his bill, he said, “You’re the kind of man who should be managing the best hotel in the United States. Someday I’ll build you one.”

The clerk smiled politely. A few years later the clerk received a letter from the elderly man, recalling that stormy night and asking him to come to New York. A round-trip ticket was enclosed. When the clerk arrived, his host took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street, where stood a magnificent new building. “That,” explained the man, “is the hotel I have built for you to manage.”

The man was William Waldorf Astor, and the hotel was the original Waldorf-Astoria.

The young clerk, George C. Boldt, became its first manager.

Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, caught the practical implications of consecration. “To give my life for Christ appears glorious,” he said. “To pour myself out for others…to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom—I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.

“We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table— ‘Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.’ But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.”

- Darryl Bell

Source unknown

An elderly preacher was rebuked by one of his deacons one Sunday morning before the service. “Pastor,” said the man, “something must be wrong with your preaching and your work. There’s been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he’s just a boy.” The minister listened, his eyes moistening and his thin hand trembling. “I feel it all,” he replied, “but God knows I’ve tried to do my duty.” On that day the minister’s heart was heavy as he stood before his flock. As he finished the message, he felt a strong inclination to resign.

After everyone else had left, that one boy came to him and asked, “Do you think if I worked hard for an education, I could become a preacher—perhaps a missionary?” Again tears welled up in the minister’s eyes. “Ah, this heals the ache I feel,” he said. “Robert, I see the Divine hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a preacher.”

Many years later an aged missionary returned to London from Africa. His name was spoken with reverence. Nobles invited him to their homes. He had added many souls to the church of Jesus Christ, reaching even some of Africa’s most savage chiefs. His name was Robert Moffat, the same Robert who years before had spoken to the pastor that Sunday morning in the old Scottish kirk.

Lord, help us to be faithful. Then give us the grace to leave the results to you.

Source unknown

Psalm 31:24," Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD."

Psalm 62:5, " Find rest, O my soul, in God alone: my hope comes from him."

On Monday morning my daughter woke my wife and I up, with the following statement, "Christopher Reeve is dead." Since then every media outlet has been talking about the heroic life of this actor and disability advocate. The New York Daily News wrote, " Reeve's journey from Hollywood he-man to real -hero started when the avid outdoorsman was tossed from a horse during an equestrian competition in May 1995. Confined to a wheelchair, he battled depression and, like many paralysis victims, even considered suicide. But Reeve impatiently vowed to walk again and lunged into the political battle to expand funding for medical research." One day while in Rehab and interview with Christopher Reeves happened to light up the TV in rehab. It on focused on his intense rehab workouts that were readying him to walk again. He expressed great passion for the future. The interview left my spirit with a very unsettled feeling. He lacked the spiritual keys to recovery. He was ready for the fight of his life but did have any other weapons then the human spirit and old -fashioned determination. He needed to reach to the God who offered real hope. The God who could give peace to the soul, even if he never walked again. Let me take you to a different place, a nursing home in Traverse City, I am sitting by the bed of a woman that has fought a fight with M.S. for over thirty-one years. Now a new enemy is attacking her fragile body. Cancer has joined M.S. in its endless attack on the life of this old saint. I hold her hand and pray the Lord's Prayer and she utters her the final words that I will ever hear her speak, "Thank-you." The next morning Jan is dancing in the presence of God. I had meet Jan five years before as I began my duties at New Hope Community Church. I was assigned the duties of visiting church family in nursing homes. So from time to time I would stop in and talk and pray with Jan. But what could I say to one in a nursing home fighting such a horrible disease as M.S.. She helped me out. She did not want to whine about her pain or rage about her disease. She had better things to talk about to a visiting clergy. She wanted to talk about faith, she wanted to pray for her family and wanted to find out about what God was doing beyond those nursing home doors. It was very clear that her hope was in God. The most important question about one's hope is what is your hope's focus. An excerpt from Christopher Reeve's 1998 memoir, "Still Me" states, "I knew that my ability to adjust to life in a wheelchair might depend on my spirit and determination, but my future would lie with medical science." In other words his hope was in science, stem cell research and rehabilitation. It is important to work at our recovery as hard as we can but do not make science your soul's hope. Science and research our no substitute for the real power of recovery. I believe that if one allowed science and research to feed their soul hope, their peace of mind would follow the ups and downs of scientific progress. There would have great stress and anger at each disappointing scientific out come. The real power of hope comes from God. Philippians 4:7 explains," And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Soul peace is the most powerful weapon to live a meaningful life. Science, research and medicine will all fail but God's love and hope never fails. After I learned that Jan was fighting cancer as well as M.S., I went to talk with her at the nursing home. She told me that her faith was strong and declared in an unusually strong voice three times, "I Believe!" I think she wanted this preacher kid to understand without a doubt that her hope was in God. I asked her what her favorite song was? She went through a lot of possibilities and finally, settled on "Great is Thy Faithfulness." Listen to these words-

Jan's hope allowed her soul to rest in God. Let me explain it another way. Last week I went to visit a friend in prison. He was new to the prison system and this was my first visit with him all locked up. So I had a lot of questions. He seemed very peaceful as I visited. He told me that he had made a decision to not place his hope in getting out. That he was not going to live for the next court date or parole hearing. That he was going to be content in the situation. Then in told me that he met the most remarkable Christian in prison. This man expressed the presence of God everywhere he went. He smiled. He prayed. He welcomed newcomers to prison. He led bible studies. This man was a powerful force for the kingdom of God and he had been in prison for thirty years. This unknown man of faith learned to put his hope in God not in deliverance from prison. Therefore, he was truly free to express God's love to everyone. Many of us need to say with the Psalmist, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." [Psalm 42}

What is your hope in? Doctors'

They fail.

Medicine, escape, science, research, government, deliverance, lawyers, technology, counselors, rehab '

They fail.