by Servants in the church are held to a high standard, not by virtue of their position but that the maturing in their Christian walk is able to guide those whom they serve into the image of Christ. No one is perfect nor expected to be perfect, but servants are required to be perfecting or maturing with this objective in mind — the perfecting of God’s people (Ephesians 4). This is not possible if His servants are not already and continually perfecting themselves (1 Corinthians 4). This is outlined for us in Romans chapter 12. Reading this chapter, we can see that serving God is not for the faint of heart, and only possible by His grace as we yield our will to His:
- (12:1-2) – We are to be perfecting ourselves for His service
- (12:3) – Perfecting is God’s standard that is achieved only through His grace
- (12:4-8) – As we have been maturing in our Christian walk, we answer God’s call to serve Him through His church
- (12:9-21) – We are to maintain our standards as the devil and the world battles against God through us
God requires us to maintain His highest standards, not just in church but in the world that may never see the church side of our lives. God’s Word establishes this as a command by using the word “required” in 1 Corinthians 4:2. This affirms to God’s people that any biblical standards laid out by our church leadership is from God and not from man. In this verse, “to be found faithful” encompasses all areas of faithfulness found in God’s Word ─ Christian conduct and character (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), church attendance (Hebrews 10:25), doctrinal agreement with our church (Acts 2:42), separation from this world’s worldliness (2 Corinthians 6:14-17), physical modesty (1 Timothy 2:8-9), etc. Any list of standards given by our church leadership is not limited to a subset of these or other principles, and any list can be changed as our leadership deems necessary as they highlight current events and wickedness in this world. If something is not listed, this does not mean it’s not a point of high standard that God’s servants are to be attaining. Furthermore, if there is any area in our Christian lives listed or not listed that is lacking our faithful stewardship, the leadership of our church will help us to see it clearly and counsel in the means of achieving God’s standards of service.
With these few thoughts in mind, understand this, the world by human nature judges our church by our leadership’s weakest link, and they look at all servants as leaders. By answering His call, you will be held to an even higher standard of expectation by the world that is watching your every move. Therefore, the testimony of our church is impacted by your testimony as one of God’s servants. Again, no one is perfect or expected to be perfect. However, we are to be blameless (Philippians 2:12-18). To maintain our blamelessness, when we mess up, we fess up, and we dress up once again in God armor to get back on the battlefield for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Ephesians 6).
