Post by Admin_Dan on Nov 21, 2006 16:29:10 GMT -5
God Can Use You
By Jesse Morrell
If you live long enough upon the earth, it is inevitable that you will eventually and surely be lied to. Someone, somewhere, will lie to you about something. The perception that you have of truth determines how you will live your life. Lies, disguised as truth, can set up limitations and boundaries on your life which can be grossly detrimental to your service towards God. There are certain deceptions and misconceptions that are deadly to the Christians productivity for the Kingdom of God. These deceptions destroy the possibilities of your life, and we must be able to recognize them.
We have one life to live, and we only have one shot at it. So to allow and permit lies to alter the course of our living, which is for God, rather then living as we should is tremendously tragic. The magnitude of the horrific-ness of allowing anything at all to interfere with our labor for Christ can be measured by how great it actually is to work and labor for Christ. There is no greater privilege and honor given to man then to, as Emeal Zwayne said, “Know his maker, be known by his maker, and to make his maker known.” Serving the Lord is greater then serving “self” because God is greater then self. Living for the Lord is greater then living for money and wealth because the labor for God is eternal. No service can be compared to the Christian service. If you want your life to be great, live for the One who is the Greatest of all. If you want your life to matter, you must live for things which really matter, and nothing is more important then eternal matters. Therefore, to allow falsehood to hinder your fruit bearing is an absolutely awful, and unnecessary, tragedy.
- God can use you, even if you don’t believe he can.
One of the most common reasons why people are not being used by God is because they do not believe that they can be used by God. I wonder if Andrew and his brother Simon would have ever viewed themselves as qualified, being lowly fishermen, to following Jesus had it not been for Jesus saying directly to them “follow me”. Would they have left all the processions they had and all the people they knew in order to walk in the way of the Lord, had Christ not selected them personally? Their humility did not hinder them, rather it qualified them. They were qualified in the eyes of the Lord to be great in the Kingdom of God, which comes only through being least here in the kingdoms of the earth.
There is a difference between true, genuine humility, and believing a lie. Humility is being willing to take any task, even the lowest task, while lies limit you to only those lowly tasks. Simon and Andrew were humble enough to be fishermen, but when Jesus said “Follow me” they quickly left their nets in obedience to Him. Christ also came to the earth with the most important task of all of history, to seek and save the lost to bring glory and honor to Gods name, and yet He was still willing to wash his disciple’s feet. He was humble enough for the least of tasks but was willing and obedient enough for the greatest of tasks. Should we be any different? It seems that a great hindrance to doing great things for God can be disguised in humility, when it is really far from it.
Gideon, a man of value and of valor in the eyes of God who lead a great army in triumphant victory, once hide from the enemy. While Gideon thought very lowly of himself, God thought very highly of him and sent the angel to him who said “you mighty man of valor!” (Judges 6:12) God sees possibilities (and soon to be realities), not circumstances. Maybe you to are hiding, believing that God can’t use you. It’s time to step out from your hiding place and join the army of God. Yes, those in the army are few and the dangers are many, but the Lord is on our side so who could dare stand against us?
Saying that God can’t use you is to dishonor and disgrace the ability and even the name of God. Satan comes with his deadly deceptions to deceive you, whispering in your ear hurtful and harmful lies that God won’t use you to do this and God can’t use you to do that. Brethren, if Christ lives in you then you are able! “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Take the words of Christ and burry them deep inside your heart so that you always have hope. To cleanse yourself from destructive, devastating deception you must bath your soul in the Word of Truth. Notice that He did not say “The things which are impossible with me are possible for God” (although that is a true statement) but it says “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God”. When you allow God to work with you and through you the possibilities are limitless.
- God can use you, no matter your age.
Abraham and Moses were used in their old age to bring glory to the Lord. Abraham was used to be the father of a Nation and Moses was used to lead that Nation into freedom. The Prophet Jeremiah and the Pastor Timothy were both used in their young age to bring glory to the Lord. Jeremiah was used to warn people in their disobedience, and Timothy was used to encourage people in their obedience. There are others as well. “Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child” (1 Sam. 2:18). God is not bound by time and space which He has created and neither is he bound by your age, which He has given you. I am overwhelming grateful that the Lord can use those who are young, having myself just celebrated my twentieth birthday a week ago. If I wasn’t able to minister to the godly and also to the ungodly I would be at a loss as to how to spend my time and my life. If I can’t have a life of ministry now then I don’t want to have a life at all.
If the Lord could not, or choose not, to use those who are young then the blaspheming of Goliath would have continued and David would have never found favor and become King. In his humility, David attended the sheep fields. But in the confidence of the Lord David slew the “uncircumcised philistine” and brought reverence and godly fear back to the name of the God of Israel. Remember, it was his older brother that tried to tell him to go home. Does that still happen today? If God was limited and did not use those who were young, the entire Nation of Israel would have been destroyed by the hand of Haman because God would not have used young Esther and raised her up “for such a time as this”(Esther 4:14).
In history there are amazing accounts of those who are young, but yet knew their God, and did great exploits for the Kingdom. Young David Brainerd (1718-1747) brought revival to the American Indians. His life has inspired some of the greatest leaders the Christian church has ever had and yet he died at the young age of 29 of tuberculosis. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), was converted at age 15. By age 16 he started preaching in home meetings and by age 19 he was the pastor of a large church in London. By the time he was 21 he was ministering from the pulpit to the multitudes in the Metropolitan Tabernacle which was built specifically for him. God once bypassed all the aged ministers and all the educated university students and picked a young man from the coal mines named Evan Roberts. And through this young man came the Welsh revival of 1904! The history of the world would look quite different if the Lord did not use those who are young in age.
-God can use you, no matter your background.
What hope would there be for a child born of slave parents? And then what future could there be for him if he fled from his home country to escape murder charges? What could God actually do with such a person? The accomplishments are so great that he made it into the Christian hall of fame, Hebrews 11:23-29. Moses, the great prophet of God who saw a glimpse of the glory of the Almighty, had more then humble beginnings. Moses, who lead thousands of slaves into freedom, was born a slave himself. The same Moses, who fearless confronted Pharaoh of Egypt, once fled from the law of Egypt.
There was once a boy who was as violent as they come. He would drink alcohol as if it were water and consumed drugs as if he lived off them. He would get into physical fight as if it were how he made his living. It was just as common for him to go to jail as it is for some people to go to the market. His religious beliefs were twisted and perverted and he led many people down the paths of impurity. What could God do with such a fowl, unholy creature? How could there be any hope and usefulness of such a man as that! Well, that boy was me not too long ago, and by the grace and mercy of our compassionate God I’ve been reborn and am in the ministry today.
God is able to take any person and use them. I am a living testimony and proof of that. Our God is the God who can turn water into wine. He is able to take scarlet rags and turn them into the most beautiful silks. God can take even the worst of sinners and turn them into the best of saints. Your family situation may have been terrible, your teen years may have been tragic, and you may look totally useless in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of the Lord it is not so. No matter what your past or your background, God can use you.
- God can use you, even if you aren’t educated.
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” (Ac 4:13) What a powerful truth this one statement declares. These men were uneducated and untrained, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, but “they realized that they had been with Jesus”. Today we see plenty of educated men and conclude that they’ve been to seminary. But where are those who have been with Jesus? Where are those who go where Jesus went, into the highway and the byways? Where are those who have a secret life of prayer and intercession as Jesus did, rising early and getting away before anyone notices them? Where are they? Are they in the pulpits where they belong?
I’d like to point out to you that none of the twelve disciples ever went to college. In fact, no one who ever wrote a book in the bible attended college! But there also wasn’t a single person that God used to write the scriptures who didn’t walk with Him. If Jesus were alive today I wonder how many churches there are that wouldn’t even let Him preach there because He doesn’t have any degrees. We put such an emphasis on our ministers to have degrees, why? God doesn’t. God emphasizes and requires that they get alone with Him. I’ve never taken a college class, let alone receive any degrees, and I haven’t found any need from God to do so. Whatever those boys are learning in Bible College may be nice but it obviously isn’t doing the job. America, with all her bible colleges and with all her ministers with degrees is still going to hell, even quicker then other nations. We are dying due to a lacking of men who “have been with Jesus” because we have been looking for men who have been to seminary instead.
- God can use you, and you must let him
God uses those who are willing to be used. If you want to be used by the Lord, there is room in His army for your services. Not only can you be used by God, but you must be used by God! It is no right of ours to deny Jesus His Lordship. When Christ is your Lord you receive all your commands, all your directions, all of your orders from Him and Him alone. When Christ is your Lord you bear fruits of righteousness and of service to Him. As a pregnant women in painful labor, who forces life out of her body, so should we, as painful and hard it may be at times, produce fruits of life with our lives. Christians must be rivers who receive truth and life from the ocean of God, pouring the living waters onto dry deserts.
“Why have you been standing here idle all day?” (Matt. 20:3). The Lord has use of you. Don’t allow and permit anything to hold you back from laboring for God. Walls of hindrances have been established and even fortified but they can not stand when the battering ram of truth comes. Christian, tear them down with an obedient heart of faith! The world is dying because the laborers are few. The remnant of holy Christians who produce fruit for God is indeed small within the church, but you don’t have waste your life. If you stand up in confidence, walk in faith, and look with expectation you will see what God is able to do through your life.
By Jesse Morrell
If you live long enough upon the earth, it is inevitable that you will eventually and surely be lied to. Someone, somewhere, will lie to you about something. The perception that you have of truth determines how you will live your life. Lies, disguised as truth, can set up limitations and boundaries on your life which can be grossly detrimental to your service towards God. There are certain deceptions and misconceptions that are deadly to the Christians productivity for the Kingdom of God. These deceptions destroy the possibilities of your life, and we must be able to recognize them.
We have one life to live, and we only have one shot at it. So to allow and permit lies to alter the course of our living, which is for God, rather then living as we should is tremendously tragic. The magnitude of the horrific-ness of allowing anything at all to interfere with our labor for Christ can be measured by how great it actually is to work and labor for Christ. There is no greater privilege and honor given to man then to, as Emeal Zwayne said, “Know his maker, be known by his maker, and to make his maker known.” Serving the Lord is greater then serving “self” because God is greater then self. Living for the Lord is greater then living for money and wealth because the labor for God is eternal. No service can be compared to the Christian service. If you want your life to be great, live for the One who is the Greatest of all. If you want your life to matter, you must live for things which really matter, and nothing is more important then eternal matters. Therefore, to allow falsehood to hinder your fruit bearing is an absolutely awful, and unnecessary, tragedy.
- God can use you, even if you don’t believe he can.
One of the most common reasons why people are not being used by God is because they do not believe that they can be used by God. I wonder if Andrew and his brother Simon would have ever viewed themselves as qualified, being lowly fishermen, to following Jesus had it not been for Jesus saying directly to them “follow me”. Would they have left all the processions they had and all the people they knew in order to walk in the way of the Lord, had Christ not selected them personally? Their humility did not hinder them, rather it qualified them. They were qualified in the eyes of the Lord to be great in the Kingdom of God, which comes only through being least here in the kingdoms of the earth.
There is a difference between true, genuine humility, and believing a lie. Humility is being willing to take any task, even the lowest task, while lies limit you to only those lowly tasks. Simon and Andrew were humble enough to be fishermen, but when Jesus said “Follow me” they quickly left their nets in obedience to Him. Christ also came to the earth with the most important task of all of history, to seek and save the lost to bring glory and honor to Gods name, and yet He was still willing to wash his disciple’s feet. He was humble enough for the least of tasks but was willing and obedient enough for the greatest of tasks. Should we be any different? It seems that a great hindrance to doing great things for God can be disguised in humility, when it is really far from it.
Gideon, a man of value and of valor in the eyes of God who lead a great army in triumphant victory, once hide from the enemy. While Gideon thought very lowly of himself, God thought very highly of him and sent the angel to him who said “you mighty man of valor!” (Judges 6:12) God sees possibilities (and soon to be realities), not circumstances. Maybe you to are hiding, believing that God can’t use you. It’s time to step out from your hiding place and join the army of God. Yes, those in the army are few and the dangers are many, but the Lord is on our side so who could dare stand against us?
Saying that God can’t use you is to dishonor and disgrace the ability and even the name of God. Satan comes with his deadly deceptions to deceive you, whispering in your ear hurtful and harmful lies that God won’t use you to do this and God can’t use you to do that. Brethren, if Christ lives in you then you are able! “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” Take the words of Christ and burry them deep inside your heart so that you always have hope. To cleanse yourself from destructive, devastating deception you must bath your soul in the Word of Truth. Notice that He did not say “The things which are impossible with me are possible for God” (although that is a true statement) but it says “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God”. When you allow God to work with you and through you the possibilities are limitless.
- God can use you, no matter your age.
Abraham and Moses were used in their old age to bring glory to the Lord. Abraham was used to be the father of a Nation and Moses was used to lead that Nation into freedom. The Prophet Jeremiah and the Pastor Timothy were both used in their young age to bring glory to the Lord. Jeremiah was used to warn people in their disobedience, and Timothy was used to encourage people in their obedience. There are others as well. “Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child” (1 Sam. 2:18). God is not bound by time and space which He has created and neither is he bound by your age, which He has given you. I am overwhelming grateful that the Lord can use those who are young, having myself just celebrated my twentieth birthday a week ago. If I wasn’t able to minister to the godly and also to the ungodly I would be at a loss as to how to spend my time and my life. If I can’t have a life of ministry now then I don’t want to have a life at all.
If the Lord could not, or choose not, to use those who are young then the blaspheming of Goliath would have continued and David would have never found favor and become King. In his humility, David attended the sheep fields. But in the confidence of the Lord David slew the “uncircumcised philistine” and brought reverence and godly fear back to the name of the God of Israel. Remember, it was his older brother that tried to tell him to go home. Does that still happen today? If God was limited and did not use those who were young, the entire Nation of Israel would have been destroyed by the hand of Haman because God would not have used young Esther and raised her up “for such a time as this”(Esther 4:14).
In history there are amazing accounts of those who are young, but yet knew their God, and did great exploits for the Kingdom. Young David Brainerd (1718-1747) brought revival to the American Indians. His life has inspired some of the greatest leaders the Christian church has ever had and yet he died at the young age of 29 of tuberculosis. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), was converted at age 15. By age 16 he started preaching in home meetings and by age 19 he was the pastor of a large church in London. By the time he was 21 he was ministering from the pulpit to the multitudes in the Metropolitan Tabernacle which was built specifically for him. God once bypassed all the aged ministers and all the educated university students and picked a young man from the coal mines named Evan Roberts. And through this young man came the Welsh revival of 1904! The history of the world would look quite different if the Lord did not use those who are young in age.
-God can use you, no matter your background.
What hope would there be for a child born of slave parents? And then what future could there be for him if he fled from his home country to escape murder charges? What could God actually do with such a person? The accomplishments are so great that he made it into the Christian hall of fame, Hebrews 11:23-29. Moses, the great prophet of God who saw a glimpse of the glory of the Almighty, had more then humble beginnings. Moses, who lead thousands of slaves into freedom, was born a slave himself. The same Moses, who fearless confronted Pharaoh of Egypt, once fled from the law of Egypt.
There was once a boy who was as violent as they come. He would drink alcohol as if it were water and consumed drugs as if he lived off them. He would get into physical fight as if it were how he made his living. It was just as common for him to go to jail as it is for some people to go to the market. His religious beliefs were twisted and perverted and he led many people down the paths of impurity. What could God do with such a fowl, unholy creature? How could there be any hope and usefulness of such a man as that! Well, that boy was me not too long ago, and by the grace and mercy of our compassionate God I’ve been reborn and am in the ministry today.
God is able to take any person and use them. I am a living testimony and proof of that. Our God is the God who can turn water into wine. He is able to take scarlet rags and turn them into the most beautiful silks. God can take even the worst of sinners and turn them into the best of saints. Your family situation may have been terrible, your teen years may have been tragic, and you may look totally useless in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of the Lord it is not so. No matter what your past or your background, God can use you.
- God can use you, even if you aren’t educated.
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” (Ac 4:13) What a powerful truth this one statement declares. These men were uneducated and untrained, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, but “they realized that they had been with Jesus”. Today we see plenty of educated men and conclude that they’ve been to seminary. But where are those who have been with Jesus? Where are those who go where Jesus went, into the highway and the byways? Where are those who have a secret life of prayer and intercession as Jesus did, rising early and getting away before anyone notices them? Where are they? Are they in the pulpits where they belong?
I’d like to point out to you that none of the twelve disciples ever went to college. In fact, no one who ever wrote a book in the bible attended college! But there also wasn’t a single person that God used to write the scriptures who didn’t walk with Him. If Jesus were alive today I wonder how many churches there are that wouldn’t even let Him preach there because He doesn’t have any degrees. We put such an emphasis on our ministers to have degrees, why? God doesn’t. God emphasizes and requires that they get alone with Him. I’ve never taken a college class, let alone receive any degrees, and I haven’t found any need from God to do so. Whatever those boys are learning in Bible College may be nice but it obviously isn’t doing the job. America, with all her bible colleges and with all her ministers with degrees is still going to hell, even quicker then other nations. We are dying due to a lacking of men who “have been with Jesus” because we have been looking for men who have been to seminary instead.
- God can use you, and you must let him
God uses those who are willing to be used. If you want to be used by the Lord, there is room in His army for your services. Not only can you be used by God, but you must be used by God! It is no right of ours to deny Jesus His Lordship. When Christ is your Lord you receive all your commands, all your directions, all of your orders from Him and Him alone. When Christ is your Lord you bear fruits of righteousness and of service to Him. As a pregnant women in painful labor, who forces life out of her body, so should we, as painful and hard it may be at times, produce fruits of life with our lives. Christians must be rivers who receive truth and life from the ocean of God, pouring the living waters onto dry deserts.
“Why have you been standing here idle all day?” (Matt. 20:3). The Lord has use of you. Don’t allow and permit anything to hold you back from laboring for God. Walls of hindrances have been established and even fortified but they can not stand when the battering ram of truth comes. Christian, tear them down with an obedient heart of faith! The world is dying because the laborers are few. The remnant of holy Christians who produce fruit for God is indeed small within the church, but you don’t have waste your life. If you stand up in confidence, walk in faith, and look with expectation you will see what God is able to do through your life.