(Listen to the Podcast at www.bibleblogpodcast.com or subscribe at iTunes.)

This is Bible blog number 400.

Wow.  Thank You, God.

When I felt God impressing on me to start this Bible blog in November 2006, I had no idea what He was planning to do with me.  I thought it might be something that I did for a few months and then He would call me into something else.  My foolish heart thought it would be something "bigger" than this and that the Bible blog was going to just be the training ground where I refined some talents to do something more significant for the Kingdom of God. 

Oh what a fool I have been...

However, it's not a foolishness that doesn't fall on the rest of us at some point in our walk with Christ.  I know that if I was starting thing now my mindset would be completely different than it was back then because now I realize it doesn't matter if there's 20 people or 200 people or 2000 people reading this blog every day.  If the truth of the Gospel goes out to just one person who needs to hear that truth then this has accomplished a mighty purpose for the Kingdom.  There are many times, however, where churches and Christians think accomplishment for God is measured in the way the world measures accomplishment...total numbers of people.  The bigger the church, the more successful it is for Christ.  God doesn't look at things that way.

Take for example Matthew 10:42 (ESV) that reads "And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward."  Jesus is talking about the simple act of giving someone a cup of water.  That is not a big thing in the eyes of the world and if you told someone who's not a believer that you gave someone a cup of water for Jesus they would likely laugh and tell you they gave out a dozen today for nothing.  Yet in the eyes of God, the simple act of giving out a single cup of water is a worthy use of a disciple of Jesus. 

Some may call it a lesson in humility...and I guess it could be framed that way...but I see it more as a lesson in getting our perspective of life in line with God's perspective in life.  Remember how in Luke 19:17 (ESV) Jesus says as part of a parable "And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities"?  The tendency as humans would be for us to focus on the fact that servant is being given ten cities...a big thing...when in reality the important part is that the servant was faithful with the little thing they had been given in the first place.  They focused on the little thing and as a result of the success that came from their obedience to their master they were given more responsibility and more of a chance to make a difference for their master.

We are no different today when it comes to serving the Lord.

So if you're working in a ministry that is serving a small number of people do not allow yourself to be discouraged if people criticize you for the small number you may be serving.  Ignore the taunting of the enemy when they try to make you believe you're not accomplishing anything for Christ or that what you do does not matter to God.  We have to strive to be faithful in the little things and once we have reached that point then the Lord can take us on to bigger and bigger things because our perspective is going to be on God and His will rather than the numbers of those around us.