Final words from Chuck Colson

This will be the last blog dealing with Charles Colson's book entitled Who Speaks for God. Even though it represents some of his earlier writings, its truths still apply to our world today.

1. We Christians have fallen into a trap. We take refuge from society's decadence in our pious enclaves, and rant and rave about the culture as if it were some distant evil empire. But we forget so easily that the culture is nothing more than a collection of individuals of which we are a part – and for whom our Lord has given us a special responsibility. He has commanded us to be salt and light in the midst of the world. In Jesus's day, salt was used not only as flavoring, but more importantly, as a preservative. Meat could be saved from spoilage only when salt was rubbed in, permeating it. It is the same with the culture. Made up of sinful people, it will inevitably rot unless Christians permeate its very fiber.

2. We in the U. S . persist in believing that humanity (at least the American species) is really innately good, and can eventually be perfected through evolution and education. This belief that we can make ourselves better, and are in the process of doing so, is the very essence of humanism. It is also the most subtle and dangerous delusion of our times… This blindness to our sin can be equally pernicious. It's one reason our criminal justice system, for example, is in such a shambles. Some liberals believe that since man is really good, when he breaks the law it must be society's fault. Man is not depraved, they say, just deprived – which sounds compassionate but is deadly, destroying all sense of individual accountability.

3. Too much today, we evangelicals attempt to gauge the success of our work in terms of church membership, new construction, new programs, national publicity or prestige… Rather, we believe it as a matter of faith, and because of His promises, and we must continually use the measure of our obedience to the guidelines of His word as the real – and only – standard of our success, not some more supposedly tangible or glamorous scale. For in the last and best analysis, the real test of any ministry's success is not the number of its converts, or the size of its budget, or its reputation, or even the fruit's of its labors… God calls us, not to success, but to faith – obedience and trust and service – and He bids us to be unconcerned with measuring the merits of our work the way the world does. We are to sow; He will reap as he pleases.