Achievement or Sacrifice?

Series: Why Should I Encounter Persecuted Christians?

I need to encounter persecuted Christians because they remind me that God does not build His kingdom on my achievements, but on my sacrifices.

I used to live in Los Angeles, where I was always stressed about one key question: am I fulfilling my potential?
Everywhere I drove, I was surrounded by advertisements telling me that I was not earning enough, that I needed to have an "attitude transplant."
I worried about whether I should take self-improvement courses in the elusive search for more success. I even got quite depressed when others prospered and I seemed to stand still in my career. In other words, I always felt unfulfilled.
But is the purpose of my life really to maximize my potential? A visit to some persecuted Christians made one fact clear: fulfilling one's potential cannot possibly be the purpose of life because so few actually get the opportunity to do it!
The millions of Christians in China's house churches all live lives in which they do not have choices. Because of their Christianity, many are denied access to education or barred from developing careers.
I sat in a house church of 70 peasant Christians and wondered: "How many great scientists, musicians or philosophers could be in here? But they and the world will never know, because they'll never have the chance to study, learn algebra, or hold a musical instrument."
Would God really make a world where only a tiny minority could fulfill their life's purpose and doom the rest of us to a lifetime of frustration?

Priests and stones
We were studying First Peter that night, and suddenly I had an insight while reading chapter 2, verse 5: "... now God is building you, as living stones into his spiritual temple. What's more, you are God's holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ."
It struck me: God makes each life that is yielded to him a living stone in his temple. That's why we are alive. That's the purpose of it all.
We are all made to become a stone in His spiritual temple, His eternal kingdom. And everybody gets the opportunity to become a "living stone" just by virtue of giving their lives to him.
We are priests because we offer a sacrifice - the only one we can make: that of our lives.
And so we find the purpose for which God made the world - to build a kingdom of worshippers for Himself.
No one goes unfulfilled because God builds His kingdom on our sacrifices, not on our achievements. We are priests sacrificing our lives and becoming living stones.
Few of us may have the opportunity to achieve, but all of us have the opportunity to give Jesus the sacrifice of our lives. What wonderful equality!
Every member of that house church, no matter how ignorant, poor, or professionally unfulfilled, was a living stone in the kingdom of God.
That old man in the house church whose back is bent double from a life in the rice paddies is a living stone.
That woman whose baby was taken away during the Cultural Revolution because she was a Christian is also a living stone.
But I too am a living stone. No one wastes their life who gives it to Jesus. They are placed into an eternal structure - the kingdom of God - and will rejoice forever in that status.

Stress and worry
Sure, I still fret from time to time about whether I am making the most of my gifts. But I sit more loosely with the stress. God has made me a living stone, and I don't need to worry.
Even if I had achievements, they would soon be forgotten.
Thank God he takes our sacrifices, because then everyone gets fulfilled, not just the few who "achieve".
Trust God to include everybody. There are no exams or elites in the kingdom of God.
The suffering church taught me that!

Other articles in this series:

• Stop Complaining
• Our Debt to Spiritual Ancestors
• Hope for Hard Times
• The Battle for Religious Freedom Never Ends
• Seeing the Bible through Persecuted Eyes
• Death Loses its Sting
• The Power of Song
• Simple Faith
• Key Ingredients in Hospitality
• The Beauty of Mystery
• Awakening to Struggle
• Obstacles to Instruments
• God is Not Safe
• Deliverance Comes Through Endurance
• Imperfect People Do God's Will