Carnal Christianity

Lately, I have been wondering who I am have been putting my trust in.  For most of my life I have always trusted in myself above anything else and anyone else.  This is probably true because most everything in my life has come pretty easy to me--not that I am great at everything but I have tried my hardest to be above average at whatever I do.  I guess I thought coming into this year would be sort of a breeze like much of the other things in my life.  When I realized that these past 5 weeks of ministry have been, at times, hard, discouraging and draining it came as a shot to my heart and soul.  Coming into this year of ministry I knew I had a heart to reach students and genuinely wanted to labor for the Lord to see lives changed by Christ.  The only problem was how I would go about seeing students' hearts and lives changed by Jesus.
           Growing up I quickly learned and adopted the mentality that almost all of the time hard work and effort produce desired results.  As I matured from boyhood to manhood this mentality stuck with me.  On surface level this mentality seemed worthy and even valiant in many ways.  Our world and culture continue to tell me that I needed to work hard and strive to produce the right results (a good job, money, success, etc.). In many ways this mentality worked great! I worked hard at school, sports, my image, and even my relationship with God and things seemed to be go well. 
          As my relationship with Christ strengthened and deepened in college I started to see that this mentality wouldn't work when it comes to my relationship with Christ.  God has never promised that my work or stronger effort would produce all the desired ministry results.  I wrestled with this idea greatly for some time and I am still wrestling with it today.  As I go about meeting with students one on one to get to know them more and share the gospel with them I realize that no matter how friendly, caring or even how clear I share the good news of Christ, they still may reject Jesus.  It has been such a blow to my heart that my deep and strenuous efforts at ministry have seemed to come up short and left students seemingly unchanged.
           On some levels I knew my efforts didn't necessarily matter in how students' hearts and lives are change for Christ, but it was so easy for me to revert back to my old tendency of relying on myself and my hard work.  Satan and my flesh kept feeding me the easy-to-swallow lie that if only I work hard then results will surely follow.  This lie has left me discouraged, confused and frustrated in myself and this ministry.  Fortunately, God was gracious and gently reminded me who was in control and what successful ministry looked like. 
          Within Cru, the ministry I work for, we define successful witnessing as, "simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God."  A couple things stuck out to me as I reflected on this definition.  I started to realize that I have been taking the initiative to share Christ however, I definitely hadn't been doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Sadly, I had been doing ministry simply in my own power and control.  It was my nature to continue to feed on the lie that I needed to put out effort and strength to share  Christ with students instead of remembering to relinquish power to the Holy Spirit.  The role of the Holy Spirit in my life was and is to allow me to bear fruit.  This fruit is explained in Galatians 5, where Paul is explaining what our lives will look like when we are filled by the Holy Spirit.  Interestingly enough, as the fruits of the Spirit are played out in my life, I know my ministry will be different.  It is such a blessings to know that God's idea of successful ministry isn't about how much effort I put forth but rather, the Holy Spirit's work in my life of producing fruit that will then help lead students to Christ.
         The second part of the definition of successful witnessing that stuck out to me and took some major weight off my burdened shoulders was the idea that I can ultimately leave the results to God.  My ministry and all ministry for that matter is driven and fulfilled by God.  I wasn't recognizing this fact while I was doing ministry under my own power and control.  Since I was exerting so much effort I felt that the results of my ministry must be awesome or at least proportional to my effort.  This wasn't and hasn't ever been the case.  I also really wished I could control who and when people came to know God personally.  But God is sovereign and he is ultimately the one who draws people to himself.  Yes, we are his ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20) and he so graciously chooses to use us to bring people to him but ultimately, it is all up to him and his timing.     This is why we can leave the results up to him: He is sovereign and his plan prevails always!
 Psalm 33:11 "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations."
     
My prayer is that I may not rely on my own strength but rely on the Holy Spirit for all I do and I will leave the results to God who is always working his plan out throughout the generations even if it may not always seem that way.