By Wendy Cole
I've been a Christian in ministry now for 25 years. When my husband and I first started it was all roses and stars. We couldn't believe how lucky we were to be able to minister to God's people. We still believe that but our perspective has really changed. Our desire was to work alongside other Christians joyfully fulfilling the call to preach the Gospel. The reality was and is quite different.
We come into this world innocent babes but with the stain of original sin upon us. This sin is the lie of Satan that we can be God. It is the sin that tempts us all over and over again throughout our lives and we must continue to recognize it and overcome it.
Working with God's people has been the real test of our faith rather than the state of the world and the people who don't know God and haven't received Jesus. I can say with absolute confidence that 99 percent of the persecution and pain we've received has come from Christians. I'm not trying to bad-mouth the church or paint Christians with a black brush. What I'm saying is, Phariseeism is as rampant in the Church as it was at the time of Jesus. The reason it comes is because in every place in our hearts that don't love Jesus more than the world, that is the place where the self-righteousness of the Pharisees takes hold and it begins to hurt and destroy the work of God in us and then in others.
For instance, whenever you gossip about another, you are hating Jesus. Whenever you do evil to another you are hating Jesus. Whenever you justify any unrighteous act, for whatever righteous reason you may believe there is, you are acting unrighteously toward Jesus.
Yet unrighteousness is rampant in the church. We copy the world and the way it operates. We worship at the altar of success and trample upon those angels God sends that get in our way. Yes, angels. These are the "bumbling idiots" that hold us back, for our own good. These are the ne'er do wells who test our patience and love. These are the truly Godly ones who we hate without a cause but persecute because we are living more in the enemy camp than God's Kingdom and so have put ourselves under Satan's direct control even to the point of hating what he hates, that is God's own people.
When all is said and done, it isn't the good works we do that the Lord cares about. It is how we did them. How much we loved Him. How we handled success and failure. That is all that counts. Jesus said to those who "prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and did many works in His name" to get away from Him because He never knew them. In fact He labels all their good work evil iniquity because it was done in the spirit of self-glorification and at the expense of others instead of in the spirit of laying one's life down for the sake of the brethren.
For those who do make it to Heaven, many bonfires await to burn their unrighteous works of the devil. You may ask, but doesn't a salvation obtained, even by unrighteous means, count for anything? No it does not. You see when somebody gets saved, it says everything about their heart and nothing about yours. It isn't about us when somebody gets saved. It is about a person allowing the Lord to reach him or her with the truth. This person is a person who loves the truth and the truth will prevail no matter what evil influences surround him.
My prayer is that Christians will drop their personal agendas, stop worshipping at the altars of this world, and begin to live the abundant life found in Christ Jesus. In this way we will be a true witness to this suffering world and we will encourage, love, uplift and be a true friend to one another.
I thank God for all of the persecutions that have come our way, the hurtful words, the unjust actions, because it has led me closer to the heart of Jesus who also learned obedience through His suffering. It has been and is hard to bear but we must bear it so that we will know how sinful sin really is and appreciate our Good God who died to save us from it.
Do you love Jesus more than all the fish in your life? Are you willing to leave it all and follow Him? Or do you think you can have it both ways? You can't you know. Your really can't.
