However – if you are now Christ's, though you were born spiritually blind, you have given spiritual sight through the second birth. As Paul explained this in II Corinthians 4:

Or, as John Newton said, "I was blind, but now I see!"

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we see not only so we might enjoy God ourselves (and you know I've written a lot on that!), but also that others who are now blinded and in darkness might see and enjoy God! Our eyes have been opened so we might be sent to open others' eyes. We have been turned from darkness to light so we might turn others from darkness to light. We are the light of the world. Like Christ, we are called and sent.

Do you understand that your spiritual seeing is about your being used by God to help others see? The gifts of God are always given to us so we might use them to the glory of God. What are you doing with the gift of the Gospel? Paul called the Gospel a treasure; do you consider it a treasure, a treasure you want to share with others?

Many women who get an engagement ring immediately run off to show it off to their friends, to let them know the good news. And in this day and age, that often means going so far as to plastering pictures of the ring all over social media for just about all the world to see.

If you are Christ's, you have the best news – He has become your Bridegroom and you have an everlasting treasure, a treasure that is most excellent and altogether lovely treasure, a treasure that far exceeds any earthly treasure. What are you doing with the treasure of the Gospel? Are you showing Him to the world – or are you hiding Him under a bushel?

I confess I lack greatly in this, but this call is a call to all who believe: we are to be zealous for the Gospel and the Kingdom of God and preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

I was recently engaged in discussion with a friend about our lack of zeal in evangelism and how often our mouths are shut, and we were distressed and grieved over this (as well we should be). We reminded one another that we have the power of God at work in us through the Holy Spirit, and we need to keep asking, seeking and knocking, to appeal to God to work in us the desire we don't have and anoint us with the power we don't have that He has promised to give us (e.g. - see Luke 11:1-13, 24:48-49; Acts 1-2; also, please see my post here). We looked back and were encouraged as we remembered the transforming work God did in the disciples in the book of Acts, as well as the work He has done throughout Church history to revive His people time and again.

But not long after one of those times of discussion, I sadly found myself hanging my head and lamenting in doubt:

"How can I become an evangelist like those of the early church? It goes against my personality. Certainly not me."

Almost immediately, I was chastened by the reminder of the Lord's wonderful work in my soul to give me joy and how I had the VERY SAME ATTITUDE for a long time before that and had the very same arguments ~ "I am not a joyful person. This joy is not for me. Certainly not for me."

I thought that joy to be a hard thing. But God proved me wrong! Nothing is too hard for the Lord.

So often we read the words of Scripture, but then we're just like the man James described in chapter 1, the man who looked in the mirror and then went away and forgot what he saw!

We need to go into the Bible, and we need to read and reread the promises as being available for us and begin to ask for hard things: a greater love and passion for God and the glory of God and His Gospel, a servant heart and a desire for holiness, a flaming zeal like Christ for lost souls, Holy Spirit boldness and assurance in proclaiming God's Word and so on. How pitiful our lives and our prayers are compared to those of the early Church (see here, here and here).

(I am preaching to myself here first and foremost.)

How often am I guilty of limiting God! How often are we guilty of limiting God! How often do we remain blind to what Martyn Lloyd-Jones called the glorious possibilities of the Christian life!

As Christians, we have been given sight, we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God's Son, but the devil continues to prowl and tries to deceive us; he wants to keep us from really seeing all God has for us. He keeps us locked up in a mundane and dry and barren and joyless and lifeless Christianity. That is not true Christianity! We remain blinded to the abundant life. We have no expectation to live like the early church: to be like those disciples who could not help but speak of Christ. Our privilege and birthright as children of God is to be filled with the Holy Spirit so rivers of living water come streaming out of us! That is why I keep exhorting you to read the Word of God and Christian biography and the history of revivals. If we keep looking at one another, we may think we're doing pretty well. No, we are not doing well. And, as a whole (with a few exceptions), the Church is not doing pretty well.

We have settled for mediocrity. We are lukewarm. And we know the fate of lukewarm believers: Jesus spews them out of his mouth (see Revelation 3).

• We are lukewarm when we continue to balk at moving forward by faith, even after we've seen and tasted of Canaan's clusters.

• We are lukewarm when we are numbered among the ten spies, rather than having the different spirit of Caleb and Joshua who trusted God and sought to press on into the Promised Land to enjoy all God had for them.

• We are lukewarm when we are happy with grace, but do not pursue grace upon grace.

• We are lukewarm when we read of the promises and power and provision of God available to us, but we do not continue by faith to wrestle for a heavenly blessing but rather settle for lesser, unsatisfying earthly blessings.

• We are lukewarm when we read the book of Acts and of the work of the Holy Spirit and say it was only for that time.

• We show we are lukewarm when we are content with being lukewarm.

We are to be pitied. We speak of the resurrection of Christ, but we show little evidence of His life in our own lives! Have we really been born again? Does His life dwell in us or not? O, may God have mercy on us and rend the heavens and rain down His Spirit upon us to revive us again!

Of course, if we only look to ourselves, then certainly all these things – joy and evangelism and walking in good works – ARE impossible. And the devil is very glad for us to have us keep looking to ourselves in that way for that's a bad sort of introspection and examination. I sometimes get drilled by people as I push them toward examination. I agree there are good and bad ways to examine ourselves. The examination the Spirit of God will be freeing and life-giving (though yes, it will also be painful). God wants us to become so desperate, to see our inability, to see the impossibility with ourselves, to see all our best efforts will end in failure, all so we might turn away from ourselves and look to heaven and cry out to God to do in us and with us what we cannot! Impossible with men, but possible with God. All things are possible to those who believe. Our sufficiency comes from Christ alone, not from self. Self-reliance and self-help cuts across the heart of the Gospel and emasculates the Gospel's power to work in our lives.

Yes, it may go against my personality to evangelize – and yet I am a new creation in Christ. I was born one way, but I have been born again by the Spirit and am being conformed and transformed into the image of Christ! I'm not saying He totally changes our personalities, but we can't use the excuse, "That's just the way I am." If anything, God will throw that back into our faces: "Such were you... but now you have the Spirit of Christ indwelling you: that is who you are today! Now go and work out your salvation with fear and trembling for I am at work in you to will and to do of My good pleasure!"

As Christians we not only have Christ's righteousness credited or imputed to us (so our sin, guilt and shame over sin is dealt with once for all (justification)), but we also have Christ's very nature imparted to us through the indwelling Holy Spirit (sanctification). Because God is dwelling in us and is equipping us with all we need so we might will and do of God's good pleasure, we are commanded to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-14). By the mercies of God, as Christ dwells in us, we are made willing and able to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. That is our reasonable service and worship. (Romans 12:1-2) Reasonable? Certainly so, given that we were who had nothing to commend us to God, we were shown mercy! We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. God sent His Son to die for us while we were yet sinners! While we were helpless and powerless, God raised us up out of the dung heap! He loved us first. He loved us even though nothing lovely dwelt in us! Christ died for the ungodly!

We must ask God to work in us what we cannot work up ourselves. We must continue to ask Him for His Holy Spirit so Jesus' character and desires might be formed in us (Galatians 4:19), so we might have a willing heart that seeks and delights to do God's will. Psalm 110:3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power! Made willing! Willing like the Lord Jesus Christ! That is a work the Spirit of God alone can accomplish! Willing in the day of His power! We remain unwilling apart from His power! He alone can take hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh! O, to be made willing, so we might say with Jesus: