Friday, January 3, 2020

God Uses Unlikely And Unknown People

He does that so that He can be glorified through their obedience. Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals how God chooses those that the world would never choose to bring Him glory and blessings to people.

D. L. Moody was a shoe salesman who never attended school beyond the fifth grade. After his conversion he became an evangelist and publisher, who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers in Chicago. He never went to seminary but led thousands to faith in Jesus. You never know how God is going to use you as you walk by faith in obedience to His call. 

Edward Kimble, a Sunday School teacher, led D. L. Moody to the Lord, whose preaching led to the conversion of Frederick Meyer, who influenced Wilbur Chapman, whose preaching led to the conversion of Billy Sunday. During a Crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina, Billy Sunday asked Mordecai Ham to preach in his absence. It was during Ham’s preaching that Billy Graham placed his faith in Jesus. Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham has followed in his father’s footsteps as has his daughter Anne Graham Lotz. You plant and water, but you may never know what your obedience to God’s call will produce, but He does.

Think about what D.L. Moody doing for a living before responding to God’s call. He didn’t have much formal education. What qualified him to do what he did for the kingdom of God and future generations is the same that qualifies all of us. God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Perhaps you feel that your Christian life is inconsequential. That there is nothing of value that you can offer God. Perhaps there are things in your past that you feel make you unusable.  God is the God of second chances. Consider your spiritual passion. We all have one. If there were no limitations, what is it that you want to do in the kingdom of God?

Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.”  – Zechariah 4:6

Understanding and embracing the fact that it is God and not you that equips you for service is the key to successfully fulfilling your purpose and calling? The question is, “Are you ready and willing to make that a reality in your life?”  Consider Gideon. 

Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!’ Gideon said to Him, ‘O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.’ Then the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?’ So he said to Him, ‘O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.’” – Judges 6:11-16

You know that Gideon was not confident that God had picked the right man. Once Gideon yielded to the call to what was beyond him, God used him to do what seemed impossible.  Read what happened when Gideon went to battle in Judges 7.

There is nothing that God has purposed for you to do that you can accomplish without Him.  The men in the Bible, the men who did mighty things, did them by the power of God not by their own wit or strength. To serve God in the place that He has chosen will always require faith.  Like Gideon you can look at your heritage or perhaps your education and training in light of what God has called you to do and wilt in fear at the thought of saying “Yes.” The effectiveness of your ser-vice is limited by the quality of your faith and your willingness to trust the One who calls.

All too often, we are willing to acknowledge that the Word of God is truth and can be trusted until it is use that the Lord is calling to get out of the boat – to do the seemingly impossible.  And Jesus asked Peter, “You of little faith…. why did you doubt?” – Matthew 14:31

Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” – Philippians 4:13

Believe it!

By Faith Alone By His Grace Alone And For His Glory Alone

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