to pray. You graduates have un doubtedly learned good habits of prayer and Christian growth here; do not lose them next week, or next year. Later, many of you will be connected with various phases of the Lord's work in leadership capacities; as Christian workers, board members, lay leaders. Lead with power, not the "brown and serve" kind, nor the "just add wa ter and stir" variety, but with gen uine power that comes from long and close fellowship with your Lord. The goal of spiritual power and maturity is no mirage, only when thought to be quickly attained. Lis ten again to the Word of God: "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (II Corinthians 3:18). Or again, "Solid food is for the ma ture, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to dis tinguish good and evil (Hebrews 5:14)." Does that sound like insta matic maturity? Polaroid power that develops in ten seconds is the mirage: spiritual blood, sweat and tears over a long time is the reality. I would be naive if I did not real ize that some might write off what I have said as so negative as to be completely irrelevant. Perhaps our concept of relevance is wrong. Our contemporary idea is that the Bible must be made relevant to today's world. Exactly the opposite is the case. We must seek to make our selves and our society relevant to the unchanging standards of the Bible. As one Christian statesman has said: "Far from catering to our changing whims, the relevance of
intolerable. But the plain fact of life is simply that many things take time. One of those things is spiritual maturity and power. But the mi rage — and you can see it clearly now is that there can be instamatic spiritual power. Many sermons seek to be instamatic with titles, "seven secrets to this," or "five steps to that," or "three keys to something else." You heard about the man who prayed, "Lord give me patience, and give it to me right now!" But perhaps you did not hear about the student who tried to speed-read his devotions. This is the mirage of instamatic spirituality. Using politics, public relations, boasting in size, and numerous other methods are further short cuts we take to apparent spiritual power. The use of politics and ma neuvering can never substitute for fellowship, and the leading of the Lord. The finest public relations firm can never replace prayer. Pep is not power, and size—what shall I say of size? The cliche goes like this: "Of course numbers are not everything, but we are the second, third, first largest something some where." The Scriptures dispel the mirage, for they remind us that God still delights to take the fool ish things of this world to con found the wise, and the weak things to confound the things that are mighty, and He does it for a very special reason—that no flesh should glory in His presence. My impression is that, in general, evan gelicals are well up on the newest methods, and use the best public relations. This is as it should be, but they still play politics, glory in size and influence, and fail utterly
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