We already have God's favor, or grace:
"Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my
heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the
gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace." (Philippians 1: 7)
We are called to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18)
Because the Lord is with us, we are already a success (Genesis 39: 2; Romans 8: 37; Ephesians 2: 6)
We bear Christ's reproach to the extent that we live in His glory, and thus the world hates us:
"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." (John 15: 18)
The real issue with "spiritual success" stems not so much from the preeminence we cull from it, but the spirit of separation and condemnation which stems from it. If we think that we are doing anything, then we are in our flesh, not in grace.
In Luke 10:20 , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right.
Everything is all right for us before God because we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 21) We must never think that our standing before God depends on anything but the grace of God, on which our hearts are established before Him.
Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit.
Chambers evinces some of the "commercial spirit" which he has already condemned. We are all God's children by grace through faith, and we are well-pleasing to Him, as we are accepted in His Beloved Son (Ephesians 1: 6)
As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Chambers categorizes us as "workers", when even Jesus appraises us better than that:
"I
am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him,
the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing" (John 15: 5)
Jesus does the work in us. We abide in Him by faith, which produces obedience.
"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord
doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my
Father I have made known unto you." (John 15: 15)
This spirit of separation between God and us, as implied by Chambers, is soundly rebuked. We are friends with God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8: 17)
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option.
Discipleship is for those who think that they can follow or obey God in their own strength. Throughout the gospels, Jesus speaks of discipleship with an immense, impossible cost:
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple." (Luke 14: 26)
This is a stern challenge, one which no one can fulfill in his own strength. In effect, we have to die in order to break free of our former familial relationships.
"And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14: 27)
What purpose does it serve for us to die on the Cross? Our bloodshed would not appease God the Father's righteous wrath against our sins. However, every person who presumes on his own efforts to follow God is in effect saying that he can and will endure the very punishment that God's Son would endure. Jesus put the price of discipleship so high, so that men would despair of their own efforts and trust in His Finished Work on the Cross.
"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he
cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14: 33)
Yet we as fallen humanity are dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2: 1). We have nothing to give up, for nothing in effect really belongs to us, as before Christ quickened us with life-giving faith, we were dead, and a dead man owns nothing. Moreover, in the Jewish culture, it was simply impossible for a man to give up all of his property, without of course giving up his entire identity. Even the sacrifice of all our possessions cannot break us free from our sin debt. Only Christ's death on the Cross accomplished that.