Why should believers work and maintain their testimony?
Believers should work and maintain their testimony so they will not be set on the shelf as no longer usable. Salvation is not lost, but a believer can become like a beautiful but leaking vessel—decorated outwardly yet unfruitful. The goal is to remain functional for the work the Lord saved them to do.
Les explains that this does not mean a believer would lose salvation. Instead, the term “castaway” goes back to the potter’s house: a beautiful vase with a fine crack cannot hold liquid, so the potter does not throw it on the trash heap but sets it on a shelf to be sold only as an ornament. It is too good to discard, yet no longer of workable use. In the same way, believers can have all the outer decorations of being a believer and still be nonfunctional. Therefore, the desire is to work and maintain one’s testimony so as not to be put on the shelf as no longer usable, but to be functional in doing what the Lord saved them to do.
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
More Questions
Why should a believer work to maintain his testimony if he cannot lose his salvation?
Because we will not lose our salvation, the aim is to work and maintain our testimony so we will not be put on the shelf as no longer usable, even though we may still have all the outward decorations of being a believer.