Pat Robertson: Jesus Measures Every Person by This Secret Kingdom Principle

In the secret kingdom of God, all of us are measured by a principle set forth by Jesus Christ. “To whom much is given, from him much will be required.” Think about how this works.

If someone said to me, “Build an automobile,” I would laugh, and then, working as hard as possible, I might be able to create one fender. If a machine shop was told to build an automobile, after a year they might create one crudely built vehicle and feel they’ve succeeded. However, if General Motors was told to build an automobile and all they created was one, they would have failed miserably, because the expectation would be that with the factories, the finances, and the expertise available to them, their output would be in the millions of cars, not one or two.

Here’s another example. If Chase Manhattan Bank had an annual profit of $10,000, their chairman would be fired, and investors would desert them in droves, because they have available resources capable of deriving billions of dollars of profit on an annual basis, not a few thousand.

To put it in a spiritual context, if a small church of a thousand members brought a hundred people to faith in Jesus Christ in a year, they would be commended for their diligence. If CBN, which broadcasts in seventy languages in over two hundred countries, won a hundred people to faith in Jesus in a year, it would be considered a dreadful failure. “Unto whom much is given, much will be required.” Whether it’s in business, in finance, in spiritual ministry, in education, in art, in music—wherever we have found ourselves—the secret kingdom demands that we bring forth a return from our life’s work that is commensurate with the opportunities placed in our hands.

This kingdom law certainly keeps pride in check. Jesus told His disciples, “When you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'”

When I began The Christian Broadcasting Network, I had $70, a used DeSoto car, a few pots and pans, and some baby beds. My first bank account was opened with three $1 bills. As I used what was given me, it began to grow. And with the exponential curve, at the end of twenty years our annual income was $50 million. In the early days, if I had been able to lead four or five people to faith, it would have been a significant accomplishment. As I write these words, our surveys indicate that our programs have resulted in over one hundred million people around the world coming to faith. How could we possibly rest secure if we failed to live up to what’s been placed in our hands? “Unto him who has been given much, much will be required.” The more we receive and the more we learn and the more skills we achieve, the higher the demands will be on our lives.

I am interested in the way the Old Testament describes the death of certain kings. It is said, “He rested with his ancestors.” So much is said today about preparing for retirement. People want retirement to begin at sixty-five, or maybe sixty-six or sixty-seven. In the Bible there was no retirement. People lived and served God and became His witnesses on earth and continued to work. Then the Bible says, “They rested with their ancestors.”

I once received a question on my television show, The 700 Club, in which the viewer stated, “After I die, I thought I could take it easy and lie out on the beach for all eternity.” I thought that was one of the most ridiculous things I had ever heard, because I personally hate the thought of being idle.

In truth, the apostle Paul says that the saints will judge the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). That task is enough to keep us all busy. But according to Regent University’s visiting professor, astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross, there are a billion trillion stars the size of our sun in the universe, and in the world to come, if God wants to, He will have no problem assigning a planet to each of His saints to manage for all eternity. “Unto whom much is given, much will be required.” {eoa}

This is an adapted excerpt from Ten Laws for Success: Keys to Win in Work, Family, and Finance. Copyright ©2020 Published by Charisma House. Used by permission.