The Test of Faithfulness

‘For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ’ (Heb 3:14, NLT).

Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary, said, ‘he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’ Let us cast off, give up, lay down and rid ourselves of all that gets in the way of serving Him with no reserves.’ Our faithfulness is tested by what we are prepared to sacrifice or give away for a course or a relationship. Jesus gave up His glory in heaven for you. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego gave up their comfort and favour with the king and were ready to sacrifice their lives in faithfulness to God. One might say ‘that was in the Bible’. There are countless Christians faithfully serving God all over the world today.

This story will inspire you; in 1904 William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. As heir to the Borden Dairy estate, he was already a millionaire. For his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man travelled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home about his "desire to be a missionary." One friend expressed surprise that he was "throwing himself away as a missionary. In response, Bill wrote two words in the back of his Bible: "No reserves." Even though young Borden was wealthy, he arrived on the campus of Yale University in 1905 trying to look like just one more freshman. Very quickly, however, Borden's classmates noticed something unusual about him and it wasn't his money. One of them wrote: "He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. Bill Borden made one entry in his personal journal that defined what his classmates were seeing in him. That entry said simply: "Say 'no' to self and 'yes' to Jesus every time."During his first semester at Yale, Borden started something that would transform campus life.

Borden's small Morning Prayer group gave birth to a movement that spread across the campus. By the end of his first year, 150 freshmen were meeting for weekly Bible study and prayer. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, one thousand of Yale's 1,300 students were meeting in such groups. Borden made it his habit to seek out the most "incorrigible" students and try to bring them to salvation. Borden's outreach ministry was not confined to the Yale campus. He cared about widows and orphans and cripples. He rescued drunks from the streets of New Haven. To rehabilitate them, he founded the Yale Hope Mission. One of his friends wrote that he "might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night, on the street, in a cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ.

Although he was a millionaire, Bill seemed to "realize always that he must be about his Father's business and not wasting time in the pursuit of amusement. Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down some high paying job offers. In his Bible, he wrote two more words: "No retreats." William Borden went on to graduate work at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead.

When news of William Whiting Borden's death was cabled back to the U.S., the story was carried by nearly every American newspaper. "A wave of sorrow went round the world... Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice" wrote Mary Taylor in her introduction to his biography. Was Borden's untimely death a waste? Not in God's plan. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his Bible. Underneath the words "No reserves" and "No retreats," he had written: "No regrets." Reflect on your faithfulness today, God is counting on you. Remember you can do all things through Christ (Phil 4:13)