Men want to accomplish something in their lives. They want to make a difference and see their projects through to completion. Men love to look back on a day’s work and see what they’ve accomplished.
What does it mean to be useful for God? Why don’t men want God to use them? In Luke 10, Jesus sent out the seventy on a faith trip. He said not to take any provisions with them but to rely on the hospitality of those they met.
When the Navigators were training people for ministry, their training assignment was to go knock on doors in neighborhoods in downtown Orlando. One girl in training who was a new Christian said, I knocked on one door and the woman who answered the door said, “You’re an answer to my prayer. I asked God for someone to come talk to me about salvation.”
The seventy that Jesus sent out came back rejoicing. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Jesus had given them power through his name. He said, you’ll tread on serpents and scorpions and you shall have power over them. The powers of the darkness of the world will have no dominion over you. Behold I have given you authority. For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind. The name of Jesus Christ has power over demons. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Jesus said, If you ask anything in my name, it shall be given to you.
What if we pray and God doesn’t give us what we pray for? When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked his father, if there be any other way, let this cup of death sin, and wrath of righteous judgement pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but thine be done.
Oswald Chambers said, the snare of the Christian work is to rejoice in successful service. Beware of men who make success their ground of appeal. It’s not our work for him that counts. It’s only his work when God works in us and though to will and to do of His good pleasure that counts. It’s not the results that indicate success in God’s sight. Jesus said to the seventy when they returned from their mission trip, “rejoice not because you saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
The success is that we’re used for God’s will. The answer to prayer is, “not my will but thine be done.” You can never realize what God will do through you until you’re rightly related to Jesus Christ. When you have a right relationship with God through his son, then you’ll be fulfilling God’s purpose as long as you’re in the light as He is in the light.
Abiding in Christ is the way to be useful according to the purpose to which he’s called us. Colossians 2:7 says, “Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”
We can be used by God or we can be used up. When God calls us he calls us with two purposes. The first is to preach Jesus Christ and then let the chips fall where they may. The second is to abide with him and within him. Only then can God balance our priorities to will and to do of His good pleasure.
God has given us his gift of Holy Spirit. We’re to use His gift not ours. God will teach us to use his gift if we take time to get to know him. Unless he works within us to will and to do of His good pleasure, we’ll be used up.
Therefore, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thy own understanding. When we delight ourselves also in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our heart. He gives strength to the weary and strengthens those who lack power. Practicing the presence of God is to plant ourselves by his river of living water. He saved and sanctified us to be exhausted in our own power so that he can empower us. As the Apostle Paul concluded, thy strength is made perfect in my weakness, thy grace is sufficient for me.
When we delight in the Lord with all our heart we will taste and see that the Lord is good. We have to cultivate a taste for His word. The Word of God is an acquired taste. As we feed on the bread of life, we’ll come to crave our necessary food. As Jeremiah said, I found thy words and I did eat them and they were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my life.
Be careful where we get our supplies. We’re called to become broken bread to feed those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. God will allow us to be broken bread to serve those whom he has called.
We need to die to self in order to live for him. When we give up the right to ourselves, then we can present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and wholly acceptable unto him which our reasonable act of worship. For I was crucified with Christ, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
For what were we called? What is the good purpose of his will? The conclusion is in Ephesians 1, that we should be to the praise of the glory of His grace who has made us acceptable in the beloved.
This Christmas season and in every season of life, His will is that we live exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to his power that worketh in us.
Your brother in Christ,
Michael