Well Done

WELL DONE MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SON

  "His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Mat 25:21).

 Have you given much thought to what it takes to be either a good and faithful servant or son? It seems that many today are overly concerned about whether they are doing enough for God. Of course, there is that faction who hardly gives it a second thought. We have heard them say, "As long as I get one foot in, or have a little cabin on the backside of glory land, I’ll be satisfied." Discounting these, there are plenty of sincere folks who are frustrated because they feel that they never do enough. They worry themselves sick over it, and there are reasons why they do. For one, they have been taught all their church-going lives that in order for God to be pleased with them, they must be busy doing good works, and the more the better. It is similar to paying premiums on a fire insurance policy.


 This concept has been conveyed to every age group, gender, and social status of people in churches everywhere. It is widely taught that people must be diligent and lay countless hours of good works toward their account or they might not earn their crowns of gold when they get to heaven. Much can be said about crowns; but all we will say here is that crowns are not earned by toil — they are won by victors of war.


The majority believe they are working for God and pleasing Him greatly by pouring their money into their church building funds. Due to natural reasoning, they are building a home for God. A generous thought, I suppose; but this is for the same God who said: "...The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool: where is the house that ye build unto Me? and where is the place of My rest?" (Isa 66:1).




A few have a little more understanding, yet are still lacking. They say the building is not a home for God; but it is where He meets with them — as if He has a thing about sanctimonious buildings, and unless they go to church, they will miss Him. Others are closer to sane reasoning by maintaining that the buildings are for preaching, teaching, and having convenient places for the people to gather to learn and worship God. This is a much more legitimate cause for adding brick upon brick; but such can still be a snare by being made slaves to systematic rituals, among other things. One snare in particular is common everywhere. It happens to be those perpetual burdens of church building funds. Perhaps they think it strange that Jesus didn’t seem to have a problem ministering to people and worshiping His Father without a church. He didn’t have a home church, not even a place to lay His head.


 There was a time, of course, when the presence of God was primarily known inside structures. It was first in the confines of the Holy of holies of the Tabernacle, and later on in the Temple, and during the time of the Kingdom of the Law, the kingdom from which we must repent. This place wherein God was meat, however, was for only a few priests, and for a season. Once Jesus came and presented the true Temple (Himself and each member of His royal body) to the world, the old type was forever destroyed.


We could site so many ill-conceived ideas on how religious peoples presume to please God, make it to heaven, or earn their crowns; but we would not have room in this short article to cover them all. Moreover, those errors should be self-evident, and no more needs to be said about them. Therefore, we will examine our own ranks, not as Kingdom Cops, but only to hold a mirror in which we may see more clearly to aid in our journey.