Gold, Silver, Precious Stones

"If we find ourselves thinking we can do the Lord's work in the world's way, as though worldly weapons were adequate, then we have drastically underestimated the nature of the battle. For the real battle is not in the seen world only, but chiefly in the unseen world. The battle is not "against flesh and blood," Paul says (Ephesians 6:12), and if we try to fight it in the flesh, we will be merely shadowboxing...

We can go so far as to say that if Christians win their battles by worldly methods, then they have really lost. Visible results can be deceptive. In the seen world, we may appear to make a great advance- win professional recognition, attract people to our cause, raise money for our program, distribute tons of literature, win passage of an important bill. But if it was done by humanistic reliance on technical methods, without the leading of the Spirit, then we have accomplished little of value in the unseen world.

The opposite is likewise true: If Christians use the weapons God has ordained- if we lay our talents at His feet, dying to our own pride and ambition, obeying biblical moral principles, empowered by His Spirit, guided by a Christian worldview perspective- then even if by external standards we seem to have lost, we have really won. Outsiders looking on may conclude that we have failed. Even Christian friends and leaders may shake their heads disapprovingly and advise us that we've made a mistake. But if we have genuinely given our lives over to God's purposes and are being led by Him, then we have won a battle in the unseen world.

An old spiritual classic says the Christian life really begins when we understand by hard experience that "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). It's a verse many of us have memorized and can quote at the drop of a hat. But it rarely becomes real in practice until we encounter an overwhelming crisis that pushes us to the end of our own resources. For people with a lot of resources, that may not be until midlife or even later. But at some point, the realization crashes in on us that life is not what we had hoped for, and we ask, Is this all there is? We realize that in a fall world, even the good things cannot fully satisfy our deepest hungers, and everything we have loved and lived for turns to sawdust and slips through our fingers. If we are honest, we have to admit that our personal relationships are often driven by what we want and need from others, not by a genuinely unselfish love for them. Even our efforts at Christian ministry are often motivated more by personal zeal and ambition than by God's Spirit. And the greater our natural zeal, the greater the crisis God has to allow in order to bring us to the end of our rope. Only after dying to everything we have ever lived for do we genuinely come to believe, as a practical reality, that "apart from Me you can do nothing." And only then can God really pour His life and power into our work.

When life ends and we stand at the believers' judgment described in 1 Corinthians 3, some of our most successful and impressive projects may prove to be nothing but wood, hay, and stubble- devoured by the flames. But the activities that were truly led and empowered by God, in obedience to His truth, whether the results were visible or not, will sparkle as gold, silver and precious stones. And God will set them as jewels in our heavenly crown."

Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey