The treasure is His, not ours. It is “the Gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The power belongs to Him, not to us. The Gospel seed is His seed, and its growth comes from Him. Therefore, the credit for effectiveness belongs to Him, not to us. Of the evangelistic success in Corinth, Paul writes,
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
This is like the story of the elephant and the mouse. They went for a walk together. They crossed a stream on an old wooden bridge. The bridge tremble and shook under the weight of the huge elephant. On the other side, the tiny mouse squeaked, “Wow! Did you see how we made that bridge shake?”
God is so great that He needs nothing from us (Acts 17:25). Yet, tiny as we are, He invites us to be partners—“fellow workers”—in His mission of mercy. He is so powerful that our part is hardly “anything.” Yet, He treats us as significant, even choosing graciously to pay us for our work (1 Corinthians 3:8; John 4:36). Achievement does not depend on how clever or gifted we are. Instead, we depend on the Lord who gives the increase. He turns ordinary people into effective “fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). Anyone, great or small, enjoys the success God gives by letting the Gospel seed do it powerful work.