To counter the secularizing forces constantly at work, we must be deliberate and strategic about helping Christians think “Christianly.” In biblical terms, we must “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, my emphasis).
No one is beyond the reach of Christian intercession, witness, and compassion. You can engage others with confidence, knowing that the Spirit is preparing today the people he wants you to influence tomorrow. And you can pray with confidence, knowing that Jesus is interceding for you (Romans 8:34) as the Spirit intercedes within you (Romans 8:26) right now.
One of the hardest things to do in life is to help people who don’t believe they need help. If people don’t think their house is on fire, they’ll likely refuse our attempts to rescue them. The same is true with their souls.
Like the CEO of Patagonia transformed the business industry, Christians are called to transform culture. To do this takes action, boldness, and leading by example. We are not called to be removed from the world, but to live in it, following Jesus wherever we find ourselves.
If those who preach sermons and those who hear them do not believe they urgently need a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ, we should not be surprised when their beliefs and their actions mirror those of our fallen society. The longer we avoid the light, the more our eyes adjust to the dark.
In her 2011 speech to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, the queen quoted an Aboriginal proverb: “We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love, and then we return home.” Now Queen Elizabeth II has returned “home.” She is no longer a queen—she has an even higher calling as a worshiper of the King. But I believe she will hear for all eternity those words we should all long to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).
Queen Elizabeth II consistently and publicly found that “special kind of courage” in her faith, calling Jesus “an inspiration and an anchor in my life.” Just last month, she prayed for Anglican bishops that “you will continue to be sustained by your faith in times of trial and encouraged by hope in times of despair.” If the Queen of England, one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, needed a King, how much more do we?
Satan knows the sins we can resist in our strength and doesn’t waste his time with them. So, we can know that every temptation we face is one we cannot defeat without God’s help. However, part of Satan’s tempting strategy is to entice us to fight temptation in our ability. He drags us into the quicksand an inch at a time until we are in too far to escape.
What is the answer, then, to “secret” sins?
Why does the devil love to use “secret” sins? Because he knows what they do to us: “desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). And he knows that any sins, known by others or not, are enough to grieve and “quench” the Holy Spirit’s work in and through our lives in the world (Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19).
Our names may never be known to history like the queen and the judge, but someone knows us as personally as anyone knew them. The people we live, work, and go to school with matter just as much to eternity as a queen or a federal judge. If they do not follow Jesus, we are the only Bible they may read, the only sermon they may hear. This makes our personal integrity, or lack thereof, a kingdom issue of eternal consequence.
