Faithful in the Least

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” Luke 16:10-12

Many people like to compartmentalize their lives into secular and sacred. Most Christians would not think of their money as something spiritual, but Jesus pointed to money (the unrighteous mammon) as something that is used as an indicator of trustworthiness.  Jesus was speaking about faithfulness and the importance of little things. He told His followers that there are true riches that will not be entrusted to those who are not faithful in the relatively unimportant things like money. It is easy to take little things for granted; but at the same time, it is natural for us to judge someone else’s character by the routine things that we see them do. Stopping to pick up a piece of paper on the ground and throw it away seems like a small thing, but a person who is above doing this probably isn’t attending to other small things in life that may be very important. When someone is faithful in small things, it causes us to naturally be willing to trust them with more. Every day, God is looking at our lives and deciding how much He is going to invest in us. The more faithful we are in small things, the more likely it will be that He will entrust us with bigger things. The Lord is teaching us here that the little things are important.