Living in the Light of Eternity

Chapter 12, Just a Handful of Dust. I stood up in my hotel room and hung up the phone, hard. I had just talked with our headquarters in India, and what I had heard outraged me. I wanted to do something about it, but there was nothing I could do until I got to India on my next trip. I sat down on the bed and stewed about the information I just received. Moses Polos, one of our most respected native missionary leaders, has a ministry on the Hindu pilgrimage island of Rameshwaram, off the southeastern tip of India. Each year, millions of devout Hindus flock to the island in hopes that their sins will be forgiven when they bathe in what they consider the sacred waters of the Indian Ocean. Polos and his team are able to reach out to people from nearly every language group on the Indian subcontinent. Several months before, we had arranged for Polos to take a group of young people from several Bible schools for a summer of practical training. I knew that if anyone could teach those students the meaning of discipleship, it would be Polos. But one young man from my own village had been with Polos. When I saw him, I was shocked. Normally I would consider him skinny anyway, but after his time in Rameshwaram, he looked as if he had lost half his weight. And now I had learned that by the end of the first month, more than seventy percent of these young people had left. One day when Polos had arrived home, he had apparently discovered that the last of the deserters had sneaked out, bought a train ticket, with some borrowed money, and taken off. Only one or two ended up staying for the entire summer. So I was angry. We had invested time, energy, and our reputation to send these Bible school students for training. We had sent money to Polos for their food and other necessities. Why on earth was he treating them so badly? And why did he let them out of the battle? These looked like lost opportunities to me. I resolved to confront Polos the next time I saw him. Sure enough, the next time I traveled to India, I met Polos the very first week. Without even asking how his ministry was going, I jumped on him, venting my frustrations about this failed ministry opportunity and his manner of training these students. On and on I went, accusing him, justly I felt, of what seemed to be poor judgment. Moses Polos wears a perpetual smile on his face. If you have something to say, he listens until you are through. Then, calmly and quietly, he speaks just a few sentences. When he is finished, you do not know what else to say. Now, in his quiet way, Polos said simply, Do you know that when seventy people come out with me for training, I realize even before they arrive that only a handful will make it? What are you talking about? I asked, incredulous. You know very well that most Bible colleges and seminaries do not teach students to be Christlike disciples. When they come to me for training, I do not ask them to do things I don't do. Everywhere they go, I go with them. I design everything to make them count the cost. I do not want to spend three months just to find out that they will not make it. So right from the start, I give them the chance to count the cost. Most of them go back. K.P., he finished with his little smile, This is not the first time this has happened. You've only just now come to learn what has been happening here. Needless to say, I was silent. There was nothing more to say. Nor could I say anything to change what Polos was doing, but I determined to keep my eye on his ministry. Rameshwaram was one of the places where hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived during the Civil War in Sri Lanka, haggard and half-dead from lack of food. They had barely escaped with their lives. Each morning, Polos and his team of more than twenty believers rose early to go to the seashore and count the number of refugees who had come in. Then they went back to cook breakfast and prepare tea for these people. Every day was full of ministry and outreach in Rameshwaram and the surrounding villages. I do not know how many hours of sleep the team members got during those days of ministering to the refugees, but Polos and his team labored seven days a week for months on end. One of the team members who worked alongside Polos came from a middle-class family. His family was upset with him, I learned, because he chose not to marry. Once again, I questioned Polos. "'Is this because you are brainwashing him with your radical way of living?' I asked. "'I would be happy for him to get married,' Polos replied. "'I would gladly help in any way. I'm married and have six children of my own. Why don't you talk to him?' So I did. The next time I saw the young man, I asked, "'Is everything all right with you?' "'Yes, fine,' he replied. "'What about your plans to get married?' I probed. "'I want to be able to serve the Lord without being married. I thought if I waited until the next time I saw him, he might be willing for me to help him find a wife. See, that's how we do it in India. But each time I asked, the young man told me firmly, no. Then it began to dawn on me how Polos could build a team of people willing to live a grueling lifestyle and minister the gospel under very difficult circumstances. He did not draw these team members by compulsion or force. Rather, as he said, he gave them the chance to count the cost. A few, like him, were willing to die for the sake of the cross. Having counted the cost, they loved Jesus more than life itself. I am sure that Polos's call from the Lord is unique, just as the Apostle Paul's was. But I want you to think seriously about what you have just heard and what you are about to hear. From my conversations with Polos, I recognized a basic principle involving our walk with the Lord and our service to Him. God wants us, in our life and ministry, for Him to stand on emptiness. What is emptiness? It is a void, a vacuum, total nothingness. It is like holding onto something you cannot tangibly feel. Your eyes see nothing, but still you follow. Your feet step out into what looks like thin air. Standing on emptiness means we are stripped of not only tangible things but intangible as well. Everything we are, everything we trust, our own know-how, abilities, talents, strength, all are gone. Nothing we do for the Lord can ever come from our own resources. Many people around the world strip themselves of material goods in order to seek internal peace. In India, more than any other country, thousands teach and practice asceticism after the example of Buddha, the wealthy prince who left his wife and child and wandered around the country for the rest of his life meditating. But this is not what I mean by standing on emptiness. What Buddha did and what many do today is only the attempt of the self to gain salvation in biblical terms. The Lord wants us to come to a place where we are drawing on nothing but him so that, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7, this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. There is no way we can say, I did that. Jesus told the crowds in Luke chapter 14 verse 26, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yet even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Then there was the rich young ruler who lacked only one thing to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him there in Luke chapter 18 verse 22, Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. The young man went away troubled because he loved his riches more than he did eternal life. Throughout the Bible we see God drawing his people to a place where they were suspended over empty space, where they were challenged to operate out of faith and total dependence, where there was nothing tangible to cling to but him. Let's take a quick trip through the Old and New Testaments and look at nine examples and nine possible excuses for not standing on emptiness. It's physically impossible. God promised Abraham from the very beginning that he would produce from him a great nation, but he waited to fulfill that promise until it seemed impossible to Abraham. Finally Abraham came to the place where he could say, Just look at me, Lord. I'm a wrinkled old man. There's nothing left in my body that could produce a child. It's as good as dead, and look at Sarah. She's an old woman. Her ability to bear children ceased long ago. I'm a hundred, Lord, and she's ninety, and you still say we're going to have a child. God waited until Abraham had nothing, humanly speaking, to hold on to. He was totally dependent on God for the fulfillment of the promise. Abraham and Sarah knew that if they were still to have a child, it would have to be an act of God. Then God was able to work. We have an agenda. Some centuries later, when God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, he miraculously spared their oldest sons from the final plague. He opened the Red Sea for them to walk through on dry ground. He provided food and water for them each step of the way. But what happened in the camp? They grumbled because God did not deliver according to their schedule. They had an agenda, perhaps something like this. Tomorrow we'll have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at these set times. The first night we'll have beef, the next night chicken, and the next night fish. When we reach that certain spot, we'll have water, and after three months we'll need a change of clothing and shoes. Reasonable expectations, but that is not how God led them. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out. But if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day it lifted. That's Exodus chapter 40 verses 36 through 37. What was God trying to do? He wanted them to focus their hearts, not on what they would eat the next day or on where they would go, but on him. We need all the help we can get. Gideon had 32,000 warriors with him when God first led him to war against the Midianites, but God told him, you have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. It's according to Judges chapter 7 verse 2. So the Lord reduced the number of the army to 10,000. Gideon must have been thinking, too many men? The army of the Midianites is without number, like grasshoppers camped out there in the valley. We need all the people we can get. Then the Lord reduced the number further. He told Gideon to choose only the men who, drinking from the water, lapped from their hands to their mouths and did not put their mouths directly to the water. Only 300 drank in this way. What was God's purpose in this selection process? To show that it would be his victory alone and to weed out those who did not put their trust wholly in the Lord. The remaining 300 men were not stupid. They knew the enemy they were about to fight and that it was impossible from a human standpoint to win. Yet they were willing to go into battle regardless of the outcome because they realized the victory did not depend on them. They were willing to stand on emptiness. God would fight for them. We want someone more predictable. Do you remember when Israel clamored for a king? It's there in 1 Samuel 8, verse 5. They told Samuel, Appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. Have you ever wondered why these people longed for someone to rule over them? They wanted to be sure what would happen tomorrow. They wanted to be confident that things would work out a knowing that the storehouses were full and that if something disastrous happened, a king would be there to take care of them and defend them with his army. Humanly speaking, their request made sense. But God wanted them to come to a place where they were standing on emptiness, where they would say, We don't know about tomorrow, but the Lord is our tomorrow. He is all we need. So God told the prophet Samuel, It is not you they have rejected as their king, but me. Samuel went back and warned the people how a king would oppress them. A king would take their sons and daughters, fields and vineyards, donkeys and sheep, and themselves to be his servants. But the Israelites wanted a king. God was so unpredictable. They failed him, and he walked away. They went to fight, and many were killed. Later he told them it happened because they sinned and that they had better repent. Couldn't he help them out when they were in a tight spot and tell them later about their sins? No, they wanted an earthly king. The Israelites were no different from us, and in the end, of course, God gave them what they wanted. Their strength in numbers. Move forward through the years to when Israel's second king, David, commanded his captain to take a census of the army of Israel. Joab and the army commanders protested. God was the one who had given David the fighting men. It did not matter how many there were. But the king's word overruled Joab, as it says in 2 Samuel 24, verse 4, and 70,000 Israelites were wiped out as a result of David's disobedience to God. This does not seem reasonable to us. After all, David was the king. Didn't he have every right to know what he had in terms of strength just in case another army rose up against Israel? Isn't it just logical to take inventory? But even before God's judgment, David knew he had sinned. He had forgotten the times when he was a young boy watching the sheep and had to face wild animals. The time he had confronted Goliath. Who had given David these victories? Who? All he had had to count on then was God. God was all he needed. The problem in this story was David's inner attitude. He had come to a place in his life where he no longer wanted to stand on emptiness. He wanted certainty and knowledge, and his pride led to immediate terrible destruction. Look what I've accomplished. Uzziah, who began his reign at the age of 16, was one of the kings of Judah who followed the Lord. We learn from 2 Chronicles 26 that Uzziah accomplished an incredible number of tasks while he was king. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. Verse 7 adds, God helped him. Remember, we're talking here about a 16-year-old boy. But Uzziah's life did not end as well as it had begun. Verse 16 says, after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was no longer an unsure, awkward adolescent. Now he knew his way around. He had a reputation. He could negotiate and wheel and deal. Uzziah was a self-made man. He knew the correct protocol for every situation and had an air of dignity about him. Do you see what can happen when you trust in your own strength, your heart becomes lifted up to your own destruction? The attitude of the heart for which we must continually be on guard is the attitude when we think we have it made. Is there something else we can cling to? The story of Job offers a fascinating contrast. In order to prove that Job was not righteous and godly, but would curse God to his face, Satan stripped him of everything, house, land, herds, children. Finally, Job found himself in a heap of ashes, his body covered with boils, scraping himself with a piece of pottery. At least I have my wife to stand by me, Job might have said to himself. She's lived with me for many years, slept with me, born my children. She knows my thoughts, sees my life. She'll understand. But his wife turned to him and said, why are you suffering like this? Curse God so you can at least die and get out of your misery. Well, I have my friends to support me, Job may have thought. Even if all is lost, even if I'm sick for many years to come, they're here. They can't heal me or do anything to change my situation, but at least they understand me and can offer some inner courage to help me through these struggles. But his friends spent nearly the rest of the book misunderstanding and accusing him. He could hardly open his mouth before they used what he said against him. Everything Job had was gone. He was left with nothing to stand on. But that was all right. He recognized something more real than everything else. In the middle of it all, despite the accusations mounted against him, Job said there in Job chapter 19 verse 25, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, Job came through the test pure and approved. Is there someone else we can turn to? Some think Jesus had only 12 disciples, but we read in the Gospels that he had many more than that. At one point in his ministry, at least 82 men followed Jesus. Everything was going wonderfully for them. They were fed and taken care of, thousands were coming to see Jesus, and spectacular miracles were being performed. It was a great life. Then one day Jesus began to tell them the other side of the story. He told them that he was going to die. This was new information for them. He explained more about his suffering and coming death on the cross by telling them that he must give them his body and blood in order for them to have life. On hearing this, many of his disciples just walked away. In the end, only a few remained. John chapter 6 verses 67 and 68 You do not want to leave too, do you? Jesus asked the twelve. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Most saw the cross as a means of loss, discouragement, and death. Only a few saw the life and hope that the cross had to offer. Walking with Jesus is always like this. A huge crowd may start out just as in a marathon, but only a few make it to the end. What about my rights? Jesus told a parable of a servant who worked all day in the fields, plowing and watching the sheep. At the end of the day, when his master arrived home, the servant prepared his supper and waited on him while he ate. Afterward, the servant cleaned up, and not until late into the evening did the servant sit down to eat his own supper. What does Jesus say this servant's response and ours should be? Luke 17 10 says, We are unworthy servants. We have only done our duty. This is exactly where the Lord wants us to be. After all we've done, we are still unworthy servants. Nothing I am and nothing I have done gives me one square inch to stand on and say, I've done a good job, I deserve some commendation. As the lines in the familiar hymn Rock of Ages put it, Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Clinging only to God and nothing else is a lesson I have to keep remembering. Not long ago, Margaret, our bookkeeper for our Texas office, brought me an envelope and showed me what was inside. Four dollar bills, very special ones. I had written on each of them in red and given them to her to keep, but I had forgotten they were there. A few years before, Gisela and I had sat at our dinner table with Terry, another member of our staff, and reminisced about the years we each had spent with Operation Mobilization. We remembered the good old days when we walked from village to village and how our ministry had changed dramatically when we were able to use a truck or van to get from place to place. Then we had been able to move out full steam ahead to penetrate unreached areas with the gospel. How wonderful it would be, we thought now around the dining room table, to purchase vehicles for our native missionaries. We could equip them with gospel literature, a generator, a projector, and an Indian-made film on the life of Christ. Then we could send teams to remote areas to spread the gospel. Purchasing and equipping even one van was an ordeal. At twelve thousand dollars each, we did not come by them easily, but the more we talked, the more convinced we became that van teams could be a major force in reaching pioneer areas for Christ. As we sat at the table, I took a dollar bill from my wallet and wrote on it in big red letters, The First Dollar Down Payment by Faith Toward the Purchase of 100 Vehicles. I took another dollar bill and wrote, The First Dollar Down Payment Toward the Purchase of 100 Projectors. In a few moments, four bills sat on the table representing our faith in the Lord to provide for this goal. To date, we have received enough funds to purchase more than 84 vans and equip them to reach pioneer areas that have never heard a gospel witness. This means that on each van team, five missionaries can travel all over India, going to thousands of villages and sharing the love of Jesus. This is the first time the majority of these simple village people have ever heard the name of Jesus. So when Margaret showed me those four dollar bills in the envelope, I was reminded that nothing we had done had made this come to pass. It was God and God alone who did it. Whenever I remember David's prayer in Psalm 19, My heart is sobered. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me. We must not take the goodness of the Lord for granted or indulge the slightest sense of pride or self-congratulation, and we must never entertain thoughts like, based on my past actions, I have it made or we can do it ourselves. All we need is some ingenious planning. Where we have strengths that God can use, let us say honestly to Him, I acknowledge that I am strong in these areas, but they are gifts from you, and I surrender them to you to use as you see fit. Nothing we do for the Lord ever comes from our own resources. Our opportunities are unlimited, but beyond the challenge to spread the gospel into developing nations, something else is far more pressing. We are totally dependent on God. If we do not look to Him, but rather to ourselves to meet our needs, only disaster can result. Something wonderful happens, on the other hand, when we regard ourselves as helplessly dependent on the Lord. In our hearts and attitudes, we must remain as children before Him. If we are unable to accomplish anything, it is because of the Lord and His grace. The secret of His blessing on any work, large or small, is that all the glory goes to Him. But we are self-willed individuals who live in flesh and blood bodies and strive naturally for personal praise. How can we regard ourselves as helplessly dependent on the Lord and give Him all the glory? Look at Psalm 103, verse 14. He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are but dust. This verse assures me that the Lord knows the stuff I am made of. The question is, am I able to remember it? Will I daily recognize that all I am made of is a little handful of dust? The Lord rescues us repeatedly from our tendency to stop depending on Him and start depending on ourselves. He often keeps us from doing things in our own flesh instead of in His strength. Sometimes in His mercy, He even causes those things to fail. Because when all is said and done, when history is sealed up and time runs out, God will make sure that nothing is a product of the flesh that will last for eternity. He has never accepted a work of our flesh, and He never will, however good it might look to us. Nothing—not preaching thousands of sermons, not even seeming to turn the world upside down—will enter eternity if it has been a product of our flesh. Anything lasting for eternity will have been done by Him and Him alone. We must heed the warning of God to the children of Israel, as they were about to pass over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. It is in Deuteronomy 8. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold increase, and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God. You may say to yourself, My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. We are no different than the children of Israel. Take a look around you at the people and ministries you know God has called to do His heart's desire. Often flesh gets in the way. People become arrogant and take the glory for themselves. When the Lord uses people for His purposes, He often has to strip away dependence on intelligence, education, abilities, strengths. He has to make them nothing before He can build them back up again for His service. It is refreshing to see how God carries along a person or ministry that acknowledges dependence on Him. Some things we plan never take place. Other things we never expect may happen in a mighty way. This helps us to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has accomplished these things. We read this about a great man of God. When David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. After doing all the things we know we should do, we have not gained any credit. It is God's purpose and in His strength that we are serving. I pray that we will no longer trust our own resources or understanding. Whatever God has called you to do, you can accomplish it when the Lord is doing it and not you. He is not looking for Bible knowledge, impeccable theology, great zeal, missions conferences, or computer information networks. He is looking for surrender. Men and women at home who are willing to say, My life no longer belongs to me. I have given it as a sacrifice. He is looking for men and women on the mission field who are willing to say, I came to this place with a one-way ticket. They can kill me if they want, but I am here to preach the gospel. How can we be sure we will be able to accomplish the task of world evangelism? Can we handle the work? Isn't the plan to evangelize the world a little ambitious? All I can say is that the Lord is with us. Have you seen how the wind comes and carries off the dry leaves from beneath a tree? That is the best way for me to explain what I mean. Let the wind of God blow you away and carry you wherever He wishes. And then what? Don't we need to know more than that? No. I do not know where the Lord will have you or me go tomorrow or next year. All I know is that I am standing on emptiness and declaring total dependence on the Lord. I am but a handful of dust. I have nothing in myself that I can cling to, no strength of my own to carry me. It is He who leads me. Whether that means having everything or having nothing, all that matters is Him. Chapter 13 Stripping Away Our Secret Longings I was sitting at my desk, working on correspondence and phone contacts, when a knock came on the door. Come in, I called. Dave, our computer department manager, poked his head in the door. I have some information here I think you'd like to see. We are in the process of making a decision on a much-needed computer system for our headquarters in Texas. As I read through Dave's figures and dates that plotted our growth in the near future, I found myself getting excited. Wow, I thought, this is fantastic. We're doing really well. My mind started to project into the next five to ten years, until it seemed to me that we were going to become one of the important ministries in the days to come. But as soon as Dave left, the Lord began to speak to my heart. What is this ministry really about? Are these plans what you are setting your hopes on? Are you standing on your own dreams and schemes? I had done it again. Not only had I forgotten for a few moments that it was the Lord who had brought us to the place we were today, but I'd been longing secretly for more acceptance, more recognition. I had to repent of these longings and think back to where I had come from. I joined Operation Mobilization in 1966 and began eight years of intensive gospel outreach. I came as a sixteen-year-old boy, skinny legs poking out through my shorts, still barefoot, and knowing no language other than my native tongue. I did not know much about anything, but I was certain of God's calling on my life. Each year the leadership of OM India gathered the entire force of missionaries together, between three and four hundred of us, for a conference. New strategies were planned, and we were challenged, refreshed, and encouraged. Typically, one of the leaders stood up in front of us and said, Brothers and sisters, we need to pray. We have no more food. I was hungry, so I prayed. It was wonderful to see how the Lord answered our prayers, meeting all our needs. After the conference, we were divided into teams of eight or nine members. Each team was assigned an area of India. We had a leader and an old beat-up truck to carry literature. We were given a few dollars for food. Our truck was filled with tracts and gospel literature, and off we went, sitting on crates in the back of the truck as it swerved and bounced over thousands of miles of Indian roads. We would drive as far as we could until the truck ran out of diesel. By that time, our money had run out as well. Our leader would say, Let's pray, then we'll go and sell our gospel literature. By the afternoon, we would have enough money from the sale of our literature to buy a few chapitas, tortilla-like breads, for each of us, as well as to fill the truck with more diesel. All right, our leader would say. One hour of rest, then we'll be going again. Day in and day out, that is how we lived. Some of the local churches would not receive our teams because they perceived us to be fanatics. These O-N people make us feel as though we're going to hell, they would say. We don't want their preaching. So we would sleep on the side of the road under the truck. One night it rained so hard that even the roadside was filled with a swirling, muddy flood, shivering like wet rats, our clothes plastered to our skin. We all crawled into the back of the truck, where we hardly found even a place to sit. Bright and early the next morning, we moved on. Several years went by and I became a team leader. One day in North India, I was called on to preach in a meeting. At that point in my life, I owned two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a pair of sneakers. But North India in the wintertime is a very cold place, and today was no exception. The electricity had gone out, so all the windows were open for light. The winter wind blew mercilessly through the building. I was freezing. As I stood there in my thin shirt, holding my Bible, everyone waited expectantly. They were all wearing thick woolen blankets and coats. I shivered, my knees were knocking together, and my teeth were chattering so hard I could no longer speak. Lord, I said in my heart, I believe I am doing what you told me to do, but I can't even open my mouth, much less talk. I want to talk to these people about you, but I can't. Please help me. Suddenly I felt as if there were a wall of fire around me. Instantly I was warm. The Lord had answered my prayer. That day I preached on hell, and a few were saved at the end of my message. But I was warm only during the time I preached. As soon as I finished, I began to shiver and chatter once again. All the years I was with this gospel team, we lived out some of the passages in the New Testament. We were faced continually with loss, persecution, beatings and stonings, but we never worried whether we would live or die. We had just one thought in our hearts. These people don't know the Lord. Live or die, fine, we will preach the gospel. If we are killed, praise the Lord, heaven is a better place anyway. In the last chapter, we said that it is by God's strength alone that we accomplish anything for Him. In this chapter, we examine a corresponding truth. It must be God's agenda alone that guides us. As committed, sober-minded believers, we must identify and strip away any secret longings that we find within ourselves for acceptance, security, reputation, advancement, the approval of others, anything that is not from God. I can tell you from personal experience, it is dangerous to fall into this trap. Just before Moses' death, God called him to present himself along with Joshua in the tabernacle. There he gave Moses a solemn look at the future. In Deuteronomy 31, 16-17, you are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day, I will become angry with them and forsake them. I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. To avoid the same idolatry, we must look prayerfully to the Lord and continuously offer up any secret longings of our hearts. Are you worshipping any foreign gods? Make it a practice to keep surrendering to God your future, your plans, your ideas, your dreams, your hopes. Give Him the freedom to lead you wherever He chooses. Jesus laid down His own desires when He was led outside of the city gate, bearing the shame of the cross. We are called to follow Him. As it says in Hebrews 13, let us then go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore. I am not saying to you, you have to endure nakedness or crucifixion to prove your spirituality, but I cannot emphasize too strongly how vital it is to come to the place where you relinquish every longing in your heart to the Lord. The apostle Paul did. He was obviously an intelligent man. He presents his resume to us in Philippians 3. He was well educated and, as it says in verse 6, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But he goes on to say in verses 7-9, Whatever was to my prophet, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own. All the things we would consider benefits—background, intelligence, abilities, education, influence—Paul counted as dung, trash, rubbish. Toward the end of his life, when he knew his enemies were waiting for him, he said in Acts 20.24, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Paul did not cling to his life. There was nothing he stood on that he was afraid of falling from, no ambition he was clinging to that he was afraid of losing. He cherished only the task the Lord Jesus had given him. Plans and strategies are not wrong, but we must commit ourselves only to the task He has given us and cast everything else aside.