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Lo and behold, the eggs are perfect this morning. Two prettier eggs she’s never laid eyes on. It looks like this day is starting off right. We’ll add this to the grid.

How does the flesh react? “Success! Look at those eggs! Perfect! I sure hope Joe responds to me this morning and gives me some recognition for all I do for him.”

The flesh, having been programmed through years of living in the jungle warfare of planet earth, striving to get needs met through worldly methodology, always looks to tangible results to evaluate success and failure. If the results are perfect, the flesh says, “Success”; if the results are poor, the flesh says, “Failure.” Also, the flesh expects a return on its investment of “service rendered.” I call it “’fishhook love,” because it always has a catch to it: “I’ve done something nice for you. Now it’s your turn to do something nice for me.”

The Lord, however, gives this woman an F on her performance. “Lord, how can You do that?” she might respond. “Just look at those eggs. They’re perfect! Even my husband likes them. And everyone at church knows he has higher standards than You. Can’t You give me at least a B or maybe B-? I tried so hard to be pleasing to You.”

Let’s imagine that the Lord came down to converse with her in the same manner He did with Job. The Lord might say, “Now, my dear, I agree that the eggs look delightful. They are about as good as any wife could be expected to do. However, I’m not looking at the
eggs
to score you. I gave you an F before you ever cracked the shells! You see, I score you on your method,
not
on your results. Your method was independence, self-sufficiency. That’s the way of the world, the way of the flesh. And as for giving you a B or a B-grade, I always score people pass–fail, for your method is always either right or wrong. It is either trusting in Christ’s life through you or trusting in flesh-proven techniques.”

The one criterion by which we will be graded is whether our work is composed of the same substance as the foundation, which is Christ. The life of the vine is the same life that’s in the branches. The work will be tested by fire to determine whether it was accomplished with vine life or flesh. It’s
how
we build, not
what
we build. Read 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 carefully, slowly. Your work is either gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay, and stubble. That’s pass–fail.

God said to Abraham, “Take now your son, your
only
son…and offer him…as a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2, emphasis added). But wait a minute. Abraham had two boys, Isaac and Ishmael, didn’t he? No. God was speaking of Isaac, the “son of promise,” and His attitude was, “Abraham, you have only one son that I recognize. That other son is the result of your, Sarah’s, and Hagar’s fleshly action as you were trying to ‘help Me’ bring about My promise.” Only God’s work will be acknowledged by God at the Judgment Seat of Christ. That is precisely why even though some believers will see their entire earthly performance consumed by the fire, they, themselves, will be saved. Salvation, after all, is a work of God, not of the flesh, and that’s the reason it will pass safely through the fire (1 Corinthians 3:15; see also Appendix I).

With that understanding, we can see that our grid will now look like this:

Finally, our housewife recognizes that something is drastically wrong with her approach as she experiences a roller coaster Christian life. The Holy Spirit speaks to her through His Word, a pamphlet, a tape, a book, or whatever, and the lights turn on. She sees that she is to let the Lord live His life through her, even to cook eggs. What a relief! Praise the Lord! He’s taken the burden off her. He desires to carry it all. So now we’ll construct a new grid based on her new discovery.

Notice that the burden is still the same, eggs to be cooked, but look at the method. She’s chosen to turn the burden over to the Lord. She’s going to choose against her unique version of the flesh (which is self-reliance) and become dependent. She says, “Lord, I’m going to act as though You are cooking these eggs through me, because the Word says You are my life.” The desired results are still the same, unbroken yolks. And look at the actual results, unbroken yolks!

Even though God now approves of the wife’s egg-cooking, however, He’s also saying, “Yes, I’m pleased, but we have a major problem here. You are swallowing the flesh’s definition of success. You’re looking at the eggs, and because they’re perfect, you believe Jesus cooked them through you. You are looking at the results for ‘proof’ that Christ really is your life. You’re making the
results
the object of your faith instead of My Word. You are walking by sight, not by faith.

“Now, I’m going to let you practice Christ as life with pretty eggs for a while to get you started off the launchpad, but ultimately I’m going to have to break you from walking by sight.”

We will now construct our third and final grid, which will illustrate how the Lord will accomplish this goal through the use of His “obstacle course.” This dear Christian woman deeply desires to walk in victorious obedience, and the Lord is going to reveal His provision for accomplishing exactly that.

Here she is three weeks later, still trusting the Lord to cook the eggs through her. She’s built up a pretty good confidence in His ability to do it through her by this point. She is being trained to abandon all confidence in self and self’s ability to meet her needs.

On this eventful day that God has selected to teach her not to walk by sight, she says, “Okay, Lord, let’s have two more perfect eggs. How I wish I could have learned this lesson years ago. I’m going to let You cook them through me. Okay, I believe that’s enough time on that side, now let’s turn them over nice and easy.” But shock, horror! Look at the results! Broken yolks! What went wrong?

Notice how indwelling sin is going to take advantage of the situation. Sin says, “I blew it! I thought I had learned how to turn it over to the Lord, but I guess I haven’t. Somehow I took over and ruined the eggs. The horrible thing about it is that I don’t know exactly where I took the task back on myself, so how can I ever be secure that Jesus is living through me? I used all the faith I had. I’ll never really
know
He’s living through me. I guess I’ll have to back off until I get some assurance that He
really is
living through me again before I can ever believe it’s true. I sure wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite.” Look at those pronouns: I, me, my! Those thoughts are not hers; they are being served up to her mind by the power of sin to intimidate her into abandoning further attempts to trust Christ as life.

The Lord says, “Oh, you didn’t take over and break the yolks. I let them break to teach you not to walk by sight. I want you just to believe My Word. I said Christ
is
your life.
Your job is to do the very best you can, trusting that I’m doing it through you, and leave the results to Me.
If it turns out well, praise Me; if it doesn’t, praise Me anyway, and let Me handle any problems that are created as a result. Your job is to concentrate on your
method
—dependency.”

Thus, our task is to strive for excellence while at the same time trusting that Christ is living through us. The results are then
His
results, and we will praise Him in them. Now, I’m not saying that our egg cooker should begin to flip the eggs in the air, saying, “Okay, Lord, let’s see You make these turn out well!” That’s like lying down in the road and saying, “Lord, You said Your angels would protect me from harm.” He’ll let a truck run flat over you! Don’t test the Lord like that.

In no way can we “put God in a box” and approach Christian victory by a cookbook-type manual. But when you’re in the fourth grade and having trouble with your math, it’s sometimes very helpful to sit down with a sixth grader and review the steps he’s learned to solve his problems. (You will note I don’t claim to have a Ph.D. in Christian living.)

Let me summarize what we have learned thus far in the book: