(Sunrise in Peru)

by Marty Martin on OCTOBER 20, 2014 in FROM OUR LEADERSHIP

In Colossians 1:27, Paul wrote about the riches of the mystery “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
This week the US staff of Food for the Hungry (FH) is having an awards day. Several members of our team will be honored for their contributions to our FH community and work. The “glory” they receive will be a small foretaste of this much larger “hope of glory.”

C.S Lewis, the late Christian author and scholar, wrote that when he thought of glory two things came to mind: “luminosity” and “fame” …
the first seeming ridiculous and the second wicked, opposite to humility. He then corrected both misperceptions, a good thing for our awards celebration! Notable FH staffers who “shine” will receive awards and, in the process, the accolades or fame that appropriately recognize them and their excellent work.

The sequence here is important. Luminosity or brilliance precedes fame. Fame flows from something else and in our world it comes and goes. Glory flowing from what has no real lasting value is fleeting at best and is not the glory to which Scripture points us. Why would Scripture point us to it at all? It’s simple: the true value of everything will be revealed by its capacity or incapacity to survive the journey from time to eternity. Glory is the appropriate recognition of that which has lasting, eternal value.

Lewis noted that the only fame that really matters is glory from an eternal perspective, from God.  Matthew 25 shows that it’s not a particular episode or period in our lives, but the overall course of our lives about which we will hear from God. What we hear could range from “well done good and faithful servant” to “I don’t know you.”


Ultimate Accountability

There are three stories in Matthew 25: the parable of ten bridesmaids, the parable of the talents (probably precious metal coins) and the judgment story of separating sheep from goats. Contrary to popular opinion these are not about who is going to heaven or hell. The theme is our responsibility and accountability for what is truly most important. The stories are about wasting our lives on what has no real value … or not wasting them.

In the story of the bridesmaids, some prepared for the bridegroom’s late arrival and some did not. Some were wise, some foolish. Wisdom has lasting value, foolishness does not. In the parable of the talents, two received more resources, one received less, but all were accountable to make the best of what they had. The two used what they had been given wisely, the one did not.

The story of the sheep and goats brings together essential points of the two preceding stories, i.e., the Kingdom importance of wise preparation and wise use of the resources God gives us, and then applies them to what is most important to God. Sheep meet the significant, but not exclusively, physical needs of the needy, goats do not. In so doing, the sheep prepared for the bridegroom’s arrival, while the goats did not. In meeting these needs, the sheep used the “talents” they had been given for that which was most important to the master, the goats did not.


The Master’s Concern

The master’s primary concern was and is meeting all aspects of the neediness of the needy (including ours), spiritual and material. Half the world’s 2.2 billion children live in poverty (UNICEF). It is deadly to divide spiritual from material needs in our thinking when they are front and back of the same reality! Please join FH in our mission of overcoming all forms of human poverty!