Chapter 70—Faithfulness in Service
Those who are unfaithful in the least of temporal affairs will be
unfaithful in responsibilities of greater importance. They will rob
God, and fail of meeting the claims of the divine law. They will
not realize that their talents belong to God and should be devoted to
His service. Those who do nothing for their employers except that
which is commanded them, when they know that the prosperity of
the work depends on some extra exertion on their part, will fail to
be accounted faithful servants. There are many things not specified
that wait to be done, that come directly under the notice of the one
employed.
Leaks and losses occur that might be prevented if painstaking
diligence and unselfish effort were manifested, if the principles of
love enjoined upon us by Jesus were carried out in the life of those
who profess His name. But many are working in the cause of God
who are registered as “eye-servants.”
Unfaithfulness Recorded
It is the most abhorrent form of selfishness that leads the worker
to neglect the improvement of time, the care of property, because
he is not directly under the eye of the master. But do such workers
imagine that their neglects are not noticed, their unfaithfulness
not recorded? Could their eyes be opened, they would see that a
Watcher looks on, and all their carelessness is recorded in the books
of heaven. [229]
Those who are unfaithful to the work of God are lacking in principle;
their motives are not of a character to lead them to choose
the right under all circumstances. The servants of God are to feel
at all times that they are under the eye of their employer. He who
watched the sacrilegious feast of Belshazzar is present in all our
institutions, in the counting-room of the merchant, in the private
workshop; and the bloodless hand is as surely recording your ne-
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glect as it recorded the awful judgment of the blasphemous king.
Belshazzar’s condemnation was written in words of fire, “Thou art
weighed in the balances, and art found wanting”; and if you fail to
fulfill your God-given obligations your condemnation will be the
same.
True Motives in Service
There are many who profess to be Christians who are not united
with Christ. Their daily life, their spirit, testifies that Christ is not
formed within, the hope of glory. They cannot be depended upon,
they cannot be trusted. They are anxious to reduce their service to
the minimum of effort, and at the same time exact the highest of
wages. The name “servant” applies to every man; for we are all
servants, and it will be well for us to see what mold we are taking
on. Is it the mold of unfaithfulness, or of fidelity?
Is it the disposition generally among servants to do as much
as possible? Is it not rather the prevalent fashion to slide through
the work as quickly, as easily, as possible, and obtain the wages at
[230] as little cost to themselves as they can? The object is not to be as
thorough as possible but to get the remuneration. Those who profess
to be the servants of Christ should not forget the injunction of the
apostle Paul, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according
to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness
of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the
Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”
Those who enter the work as “eye-servants,” will find that their
work cannot bear the inspection of men or of angels. The thing essential
for successful work is a knowledge of Christ; for this knowledge
will give sound principles of right, impart a noble, unselfish spirit,
like that of our Saviour whom we profess to serve. Faithfulness,
economy, care-taking, thoroughness, should characterize all our
work, wherever we may be, whether in the kitchen, in the workshop,
in the office of publication, in the sanitarium, in the college, or
wherever we are stationed in the vineyard of the Lord. “He that is
faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is
