Think Again!

138 • Think Again: Transformation That Yields a Return on God’s Investment

in human history. You can breathe a sigh of relief because you do matter. You are significant. You don’t have to earn others’ acceptance, because in Christ you are already accepted. You belong! Many people are incapacitated because they cannot accept God’s forgiveness. You may live in a constant state of guilt and bondage because you don’t really believe that Christ’s blood is sufficient to cover your sins. But if you have confidence that God in Christ has paid the price for all wrong-doing, you can confess it, receive forgiveness, and quickly move on (1 John 1.9). He didn’t go to the cross grudgingly, but willingly. Knowing you are loved frees you to live a risk-taking, adventuresome life. The reward is worth the risk. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15.58). You are safe in the proven love of God, the sure word of Scripture. God never leaves you or forsakes you (Heb. 13.5). He does not leave you as an orphan (John 14.8). Because God has eliminated the risk, you are set free to pursue the heroic efforts of any enterprise he assigns to you. 74 Condition 2: Boring and Thankless Tasks The second condition to embracing obscurity is an eagerness to do boring and thankless tasks. Most people consider themselves above the gritty and relentless details, so they are unwilling to pursue what seems “beneath them.” They say, “I didn’t do four years of college to do that.” God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4.6). What if your purpose is to empower someone else to receive the credit? Can you eagerly embrace that kind of obscurity? You may have a death grip on that which defines you: work, family, sexuality, reputation, or ministry. Tozer said, “We need to have taken from our dying hand the shadow scepter with which we fancy we rule the world.” 75 Maybe you don’t want to rule the world, but to let go of the scepter that controls your identity is