The Connection Between Faithfulness and Joy

Don't you just love moments when God opens your spiritual eyes? When you experience His living and active Word? I have read the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 quite a few times. But recently something new jumped out at me. 

Verses 21 and 23 say, "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'" 

It's that last phrase that I've never really noticed:  Enter into the joy of your master.

I've always heard an emphasis placed on encouraging believers to be faithful with what they have, because then they will be entrusted with more. There is most definitely peaceful freedom and enduring strength found in that! But the master's declaration doesn't end there. He says he will set his servant over much because of his faithfulness, and then he says to enter into his joy. 

In this parable, the master is Jesus and the servants are believers. He has called us to be faithful. To be faithful in carrying out the Great Commission and to be faithful with each of our specifics gifts and passions in each of our specific places. We are called to faithfully bring His name glory and fame wherever we are, in whatever season we are in, with whatever we have. 

And the indescribably good news is that our faithfulness leads us into joy! 

Dear sisters and brothers, being faithful leads to joy. Hold on to that today. Whether God has entrusted you with something that seems too heavy to bear, or He has entrusted you with something that seems quite mundane and beneath you...be faithful. Your faithfulness will be rewarded. Your faithfulness will be seen, by your Lord and by others.

Just as Jesus endured the cross because of the joy set before Him, we too can endure this life because of the joy set before us. 

And dear sisters and brothers, we can press on in daily faithfulness because the one who has called us is Faithful. And our daily faithfulness builds up into a life of faithfulness. And that life of faithfulness leads us into an eternal joy. An eternal joy with our Lord.

May we be found faithful in financially lean times and in financially prosperous times. May we be found faithful in painful sorrows and blissful enjoyments. May we be found faithful in the mundane monotony and in the exciting adventures. May we be found faithful in acceptance and in persecution. May we be found faithful in the secret and in the social.

May we be found faithful to the one who is Faithful. At the end of each day may we be found faithful to our Lord and His commands. And at the end of our lives, may we hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant....Enter into the joy of your Lord."