Faithfulness: The Measure of Success?
By Bob Mendelsohn - Written in 2006 / Still true in 2022
We sat together in a crowded lounge room in the Eastern Suburbs. Leaders from various Messianic Jewish ministries had gathered as we have for many years in various homes. One by one we share incidents, episodes, vignettes by which to encourage one another. Sometimes we say things and it feels like we’re in a group therapy session. After all, not everyone is keen to listen to the message of Yeshua, especially our Jewish people.
One woman who spends much of her time in one to one visits with Jewish people, mostly elderly, shared a powerful word. She introduced her comments with a thank you to me for bringing Moishe Rosen out to Australia in 1996. I remembered that trip very well and remembered Moishe’s time with us in ministry in both Sydney and Melbourne. One of the things that Moishe said which this sister repeated was, “Jewish people come to Christ after a long season. Some may come quickly, but the bulk of Jewish converts are won over a long period of time.” She referenced a phrase of Moishe about “unconditional love.” She then continued with her story and talked about the encouragement she had in a recent episode. She had been meeting with this couple, both Jews, for many years and only recently saw a serious breakthrough.
I’m often asked, “Do you have much success here?” Of course I never know exactly how to answer that because I don’t know what barometer people use to measure success. Are they comparing our mission with another mission that they support? Are they comparing us to some of the hype that they’ve heard in various ministries on television? After all there are plenty of ministries out there and large churches where large numbers of people come to Christ in any one month. Is that what they’re asking?
So when I think about the words of our founder that this sister remembered and I think about the words of Oswald Chambers who so carefully laid out in My Upmost For His Highest the issues related to missions and hype, I have to smile. I have to use language that might seem deflecting. Some people might think that I’m trying to avoid the answer to their question. This is simply not true. My answer is this: success is faithfulness.
“The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions.”
That can be a trite almost flippant answer, but it really rubs at the heart of Gospel ministry. God is not looking for flashes in the pans or even looking for pans. He’s looking for servants that will stand with him today and tomorrow and a week from now and 10 years down the road.
Again I go back down memory lane for a story. In 1979 my wife Patty and I went before the Council of Jews For Jesus as new applicants for a ministry position. I had met several of the ministry members at earlier visits across Kansas and even one time when I flew to California earlier in the 1970s. Patty and I met with one of the leaders of the ministry who was on a speaking tour in Kansas where we were living just months earlier. He had encouraged us to make application and to join the family of Jews For Jesus. Several things were happening in our lives not the least of which was the birth of our first born, Nathaniel. At this time when people should be settling down, and when wives certainly “nest” it’s an awkward time to imagine a transition of 1800 miles to the west coast into a very new mission and ministry situation.
One of the questions that the leaders of the ministry asked was, “When did you feel called to Jewish evangelism?” My answer was and may continue to be, “I’m not.” This surprised them as everyone who was part of the mission in those days either had to demonstrate a call or clearly speak about being so called. I told them, “I’m called to evangelism, and I am Jewish.” There are simply too many billions of people in the world for me to say that my calling is to a particular country or to a particular nation within that country. Was it John Wesley who said, “The world is my parish?”
Perhaps that’s why I’ve been so keen on bringing our ministry to places like Singapore and Korea. Maybe that’s why I did not feel so badly leaving the 2 million Jews of New York to come to the 100,000 Jews of Australia (among 20 million people).
So how would I measure success? Here I am 28 years down the path of working with Jews For Jesus and 35 years on in my life and growth in the Messiah Jesus Himself. Am I still telling people about him? Am I still trying to train others in evangelism? Do I pray in such a way that God is hearing the concern of my heart matching His that people would come to Christ? These are the ways by which I evaluate. This is my barometer.
I want to encourage you to have a barometer as well. Find a way to measure your own faithfulness—not in sympathy or in self-congratulations, but to do this in a reality check. Maybe a friend or two who are your accountability partners will be useful in this regard. Maybe your journal will be the best source of your self-advisement. However you do it, find some way to measure your faithfulness quotient and be ruthlessly honest with it. If you have fallen short, then do what you have to fix it and let’s get on with the tasks God has given us and to those and to Him let us be faithful.