We live in a world that has descended to an unprecedented moral low; we witness daily more lawlessness and perversion than our parents and grandparents ever did. Everywhere we turn, we see justice and truth falling in the streets (see Isaiah 59:14). On top of this, some of the selfish and dangerous attitudes this hyper-individualism has spawned have seeped into the church. We see it in the cold unwillingness of some to forgive and forget, much less reconcile, with their brethren.

Satan never stops attacking God's people individually, trying to wear us down and render us useless in God's service. We must not give in! Whatever weaknesses we have, Satan will exploit them to gain leverage over us. He will try to make us feel like hypocrites, become discouraged, and just give up. We must nip those feelings in the bud!

The Adversary may use tares among us to make us feel unworthy, unappreciated, or just plain useless, but we need to ignore them and remember our calling. It is our business to serve God first and also each other. It does not matter what other people do or say; what matters is that we do the tasks God assigns us to the best of our abilities.

Those who entice us to join the in-crowd—to be worthy of their company—are serving themselves. They are costly to follow. Such cliquishness and insistence on one group being better than others brought great harm to the Corinthian church (see I Corinthians 1:10-13). Until the members repented of their disunity, they were quite useless to God. The apostle Paul had to remind them that their unity is in Jesus Christ alone (I Corinthians 1:30-31). God alone gives the increase (I Corinthians 3:6), and even His most extraordinary ministers are mere servants. We are most useful to Him when we follow Christ and do not put our trust in mere men.

In his 1965 song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," Bob Dylan spoke of divisive human leaders. Part of the lyrics read, "Don't follow leaders/They're walking parking meters." In God's church, such people think nothing of taking your attention and time away from God and the brethren to build up their egos and line their pockets. In return, they give us little or nothing of spiritual substance because it is all about them. Satan is the king among these children of pride (Job 41:34), using situations like this to undermine the spiritual vitality of God's people and making them less useful to God.

The apostle Peter reminds God's elect that they are special in their own right. He calls us "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, [God's] own special people" (I Peter 2:9). Earlier, he wrote that God has created this "holy priesthood . . . to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (I Peter 2:5). Relying only on physical standards, neither the world nor the tares among us see us that way, but it is truth. We need to see ourselves in light of this truth to motivate us to do the jobs God has assigned us.

So, when we examine ourselves to ensure we become and remain useful tools in God's hands, we need to stay focused on our relationships with God and with "His own special people," His church. How do we do this?

We already know the answer. We hear it often in the messages we hear and read. We need to pray to our God regularly. We need to ingest Jesus Himself, an act we do symbolically during the Passover service when we drink the wine and eat the bread, but which we actually do as we live as He did—by learning His words of eternal life and internalizing them through practice. Doing so diligently will change us and relieve us from even the meanest of weaknesses.

We also need to fast, more often than once a year on Atonement. Fasting puts our calling and our approach to our duties before God and man in perspective. We must become humble and subdue those feelings of pride that influence us to think of ourselves as being greater than the Word of God—the attitude of, "No one will ever tell me what to do." Ironically, when people believe this, they allow Satan to tell them what to do. No one walks this earth without a master: One either voluntarily submits to God or surrenders to Satan's enslavement.

As the world approaches the immoral depths of its rebellion against God, we cannot afford to let these essential tools go unused in our lives any longer. We must incorporate them into our daily lives. They are not negotiable. If we do them, we will not try to avoid self-examination but rather welcome it because we realize that anything we must correct is for good. God, as Master Potter, knows how to make us into vessels of honor (Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6-7; II Timothy 2:20-21).

The apostle Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 1:26-28 that when God called us, we were likely not wise, mighty, or noble but instead foolish, weak, and base. The wording of these well-known verses gives us enough room to suggest that there were a few who were wise, mighty, and noble when God called them—like Abraham, Moses, David, some of Judah's kings, Daniel, and so forth. Many more were called who never thought of themselves as wise, mighty, or noble but became so during their life with God—like Noah, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many others, including the New Testament apostles and many humble church members.

These once-ordinary people became pillars in God's church. They stood against the breaches of culture and the flood waters of misdirected momentum. They stood firm in teaching and exemplifying God's way of life to toss a lifeline to their fellows in the Body of Christ. Because they humbly overcame and grew, they became useful tools in God's hands. They became His 75-cent screwdrivers.

We do not need to be "great" to be used by God. We do need to stay sharp and durable, depending on God's strength to remain useful to Him. In this life, we can be among the least, yet if we are among the called, God will think of us as among the wise, noble, and mighty on the face of the earth.

As a field technician, I had many different tools, but that thin, black 75-cent screwdriver served me at least as much as any of them. I would not mind at all if God thought of me that way. I expect none of us would.