And some of the chief of the fathers, when they came to the house of the LORD which is at Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place: They gave after their ability unto the treasure of the work threescore and one thousand drams of gold, and five thousand pound of silver, and one hundred priests’ garments.
Ezra 2:68-69
In a speech he delivered in France in 1910, former President Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Today, our church family celebrates forty years of ministry. As I look back over these four decades in which it has been my privilege to serve the Lord at Lancaster Baptist Church, I am deeply grateful for all that God has done. And I am more convinced than ever that anything we give our lives to for Him is worth our very best.
A life spent serving God is never wasted. The world may not always view such a life as successful. Cynics and critics may question the value of pouring ourselves into work that brings little recognition or earthly reward. Yet God weighs things on a very different scale. He sees what the world overlooks, and He rewards faithfulness accordingly. “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” (Matthew 25:21).
