Separated to the gospel

"We have been made as the filth of the world, the scum of all things," wrote Paul (1 Cor 4:13). The trouble with us is that sometimes we don't want to be as the filth of the world; we want everyone to think what fine Christians we are.

Some years ago, God sent me to work in a steel works. The men in that steel works knew how to give me a hard time.

One morning a young man, his friends around him, was having a go at me. He had an obscene picture he had taken from some pornographic magazine which he held in front of me. "There you are," he said. "What do you think about that, eh?"

Some time later I found myself standing at a bus stop with that same young man. Just the two of us. I didn't apeak to him. If I had been firendly; if I had treated him as a friend, I might perhaps have won him to Christ.

Oswald Chambers points out that Paul described himself as "separated to the gospel of God" (Rom 1:1). I wasn't separated to the gospel. I was prepared to testify to my faith in Christ, but I was still concerned about what people thought about me.

When Paul talked about his conversion to Christ, he didn't say "When it pleased God to show what a wonderful man he could make me." He said "When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me" (Gal 1:15, 16).