For the last few years I have been giving out chick tracts in the community. Usually, the shipment of 400 would last me a while. But yesterday I noticed my shipment received on December 12 was beginning to become low!
This was a great encouragement….
and at the same time brought a discouraging thought.
Obviously, the encouragement was people love to read tracts here. They know I pass them out almost every day and ask for multiple ones! But there is also a bit of discouragement because there is no visible fruit.
In the plan and purpose of God, I have never found anyone who was brought to Christ as a result of reading those tracts.
Thankfully I have an answer for that discouraging thought….
but allow me to explain it for a moment first.
It’s incredibly easy in ministry to view success based on results. Of course the Gospel will bring results! But those results come in God’s way, and in God’s time. Also the results aren’t what make us successful. Being faithful is what makes us successful in the eyes of God.
When we worship results instead of God then ministry becomes us doing things for the Lord instead of the Lord working through us.
The worse-case scenario for this is thinking we are incredibly successful (focusing on results) but actually being a failure in eyes of God because it’s done in our own strength.
So how do we respond when Satan tells us “your not making a difference?”
We remember our job is not to bring fruit
Instead it’s to keep sowing.
The job of Christians isn’t to change people. It is to proclaim, and clarify the Gospel of Christ faithfully. God’s Word will then do it’s work (he doesn’t need our help).
So we keep sowing seed.
And order some more tracts (probably with a bag or two of good coffee)
Johnhwilburn.com 
Leave a comment