Will We Be Found Faithful?

Before our founder Moishe Rosen stepped down as executive director of Jews for Jesus, he declared to a group of our senior leaders, “The guy who follows me in this position will turn out to be a crook and will be gone in two years.” Now Moishe sometimes exaggerated to emphasize his point, but his warning wasn’t lost on any of his potential successors. A few months later, I was elected to take his place. Two years later, I met with Moishe and teasingly reminded him of his comment and added, “Moishe, I’m still here.” With a sheepish grin, Moishe replied, “I’m glad I was wrong.”

That was nearly 25 years ago. To this day, I am grateful to God for the continued privilege of leading Jews for Jesus. I have been regularly reminded of the great responsibility that’s been entrusted to me, a responsibility for which I am wholly inadequate to fulfill apart from God.

Who Do I Answer To?

My responsibility is first and foremost to God; I am accountable to Him, and He knows my heart from one moment to the next. I am also responsible to our board of directors who oversee me and to all my brothers and sisters who serve on the Jews for Jesus staff. And not least of all, I am responsible to you, our dear partners in the gospel, who pray and give generously to Jews for Jesus. Your support propels us forward to fulfill the calling that God has placed on our lives.

Leadership of Jews for Jesus (or anything else) is not so much an exalted position but rather what the apostle Paul refers to as a “stewardship.”

What Is Required of Me?

When Paul hears the Corinthians arguing over who is greater—himself, Apollos, or Peter—he doesn’t want them to make the grave error of reverencing human leaders any more than he wants to be guilty of accepting such reverence. He says, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:1–2).

Stewards manage what has been entrusted to them, but which belongs entirely to someone else. In Bible times, stewards were often trusted slaves whose masters gave them great responsibility over their resources, as with Joseph and Potiphar. Likewise, Paul and the others were merely slaves of Yeshua who had been given a special responsibility: a trust to fulfill by virtue of Messiah’s adequacy alone.

Moishe used to remind us that the name of our organization is Jews for Jesus, not the Moishe Rosen Evangelistic Organization. And it will never become the David Brickner Evangelistic Organization either. Leading Jews for Jesus is a stewardship, a temporary entrusting of people and resources that belong to the Lord. So, what matters most is to be “found faithful.”

We all need to strive to be found faithful in whatever areas of life God has entrusted to us.

Leaders are meant to be examples of integrity, transparency, and trustworthiness. This is true in every area of leadership, be it parenting children, pastoring a church, or presiding over a corporation of thousands of employees. We all need to strive to be found faithful in whatever areas of life God has entrusted to us. As we all know, leaders who succumb to the temptation to be unfaithful leave discouragement and disruption in their wake.

When Am I Found Faithful?

I have to renew my commitment to faithfulness regularly, because like all imperfect servants, my heart can be prone to wander. I like the statement Paul makes that we should be “found” faithful. In other words, faithfulness is not merely how we appear to people from a distance. Faithfulness is what God sees, and what people should be able to experience from us, at the most vulnerable and transparent moments of our lives. A tall order, but still a standard God expects of all who love and serve Him. What has God entrusted to you? How do you go about renewing your own commitment to steward that responsibility faithfully?

In his book The Road to Character, author David Brooks speaks of the difference between the qualities we list on our resume in hopes of qualifying for a position, versus a eulogy of virtues that others have witnessed throughout our lives. We all hope to be “found faithful” in the end, but God would like us to include that quality on our current resume—and He makes it possible for us to do so. Join me in thanking God for His faithfulness that enables you and me and all His children to be faithful in return.