“Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). We all want to be faithful…but what does that mean?

Faithfulness is not a schedule; it is a spirit. There are many people who are present but not present. Fathers who are at home but not really with their family. Church members who are in the meetings but not truly engaged. Preacher’s who are going through the motions but have lost heart.

There is a difference between faithfulness and mere routine. Vance Havner once observed, “A rut is just a grave with both ends knocked out of it!” Routines can become ruts. Ruts are death.

Here is the real issue: faithful to what?

Many a person has become “faithful” to a program or system. But God-honoring faithfulness is faithfulness to Christ, to His Word, to prayer, to His church, to seeking lost souls. Faithfulness is not gauged by what is important to us but by what is important to Him!

“Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” (Proverbs 20:6). Faithfulness is more than fulfilling your self-imposed obligations. It is giving your life to what matters most to God.

Dr. Frank Sells once said in my hearing, “A Christian should not be enslaved to anything but Jesus.”

We can get our lives so organized that we schedule the Lord right out! My pastor taught me that Spirit-filled people will always be a little spontaneous because the Spirit often moves without warning. “The wind bloweth where it listeth…so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

Routine is fine if it is guided by God. But faithfulness goes far beyond mere routine. Refuse to become mechanical. Stop going through the motions. Do what you do for Christ and be faithful.