Can God use my life? Am I qualified? What talent, ability, charisma, favored position can I offer to God…simply, can God use my life? If God could use my life, what is it or where is the area that I lack to be used best for God? Maybe I don’t have any talents or abilities amongst those who seem to be flowing with talent, so what hidden talent could God draw out of my life?
I often challenge Christians, especially new Christians, to discover their own personal revelation for who God is. I am not talking about a revelation for who God is as if we are going from the extreme of “there is no God” or that there is some kind of power out there whom we title “God” to explore our epiphany and discovery that there is a God. God is not some power who spun the universe into existence or at the very least stopped after the creation of mankind and disappeared. God isn’t as stated in the movie Jurassic Park, “God created, God destroyed dinosaurs, God created man, man killed God, man creates dinosaurs.” For people who have no church background like I did, hearing a preacher speak of a God who created a myriad of things but also a God who talks with us and desires to be involved in our lives in a personal way, that was very unrelatable to me. I could not wrap my mind around that concept or understanding because I had no frame of reference. And for those who grew up or went to church as an institution or because that is what good people do, then everything coming at us might as well be spoken in a foreign language or easily dismissed by believing, “that’s good for you preacher about talking with God because we expect that kind of relationship between you and Him, but He could not be as intimate in my life.” What I am, however, talking about is beyond what is preached behind a pulpit for some to perhaps many of Jesus’ best sermons were not words spoken in the synagogue. Additionally, we may be inspired by stories of men of olden times who were in the Bible or perhaps our favorite missionary; but that is their personal understanding or revelation of God and simply not ours. Lastly I am not talking about our pastor’s or pastor’s wife’s (or our esteemed brother or sister in Christ) understanding and having a relationship with God; therefore, we are faking it by being in church because we are so far removed from everyone else, so we might as well not go or quit. What I am further talking about is beyond an understanding or relationship that a pastor, a particular sister, a man of God has with God (for that is their relationship to whatever degree it may or may not be). And maybe they had a unique experience with God—a down and out or a miracle—and now they know that they know, but what of my life? We may have problems that have problems. We may be alone. Our life seems to be one step forward and two steps back. Words spoken to us in the past rebuke us for our immaturity and is our attempt at or towards God just another example for immaturity? Everyone else’s life seems to be fixed and we are far from fixed…We don’t even know who we are, where we fit in, and can God even use our life. Is this personal relationship with God only for a select few? If it could be available for us, what is the ingredient, key, or mantra to say or do that allows us to be further? Sadly we may exempt ourselves. As if to say, “I accept my fate. I’m insignificant. My miracles will only be this far because God chooses to use or bless brother/sister so and so but I accept that I am really nothing important to speak of”. Additionally, can God use our life because of past choices, past mistakes, and past sins. Time has passed, Jesus’ blood has cleansed and erased, the world seems to have moved ahead, and yet we keep hitting that brick wall.
Perhaps we experienced our own miracle in the past: healing, deliverance, death brought back to life, whatever. We had victory. We had the anointing. We, if we can as humbly as we can say, walked in the cool of the day with the Lord. But now? Can God use my life? Or maybe we don’t want it that intimate. We saw what happened to brother/sister so and so; we saw what they went through. So like Naomi who changed her name to Marah, our name will be Marah as well. If that is what it will be like to go for God in an intimate way, no thanks. If that is what it means about longevity, getting old, being married a long time, nah we’re happier being here and now.
To use the words of Gideon, “…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…” We live in the land of disheartened on the street corners of disillusioned and discouraged. I am not saying that the moment Jesus Christ forgave us from our sins through a prayer we said wasn’t real or didn’t stick. But something happened. Something changed. Through job after job, years of marriage or a failed marriage or the passing away of a spouse, through raising children, through missed opportunities, to others who got theirs but we somehow keep being missing that brass ring. It was not enough that Elisha knew of Elijah’s miracles, conversations with God, or even being there to witness Elijah taken to heaven in a fiery chariot. Elisha still smote the waters and commanded, “Where is the God of Elijah”. Elisha needed more than head knowledge and someone else’s experiences. He needed his own personal revelation.
Like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:20, we go to God saying, “What do I still lack?”. Many a preacher and older/mature Christians enjoy this arena because we come prepared with our stones ready to let loose at the rich young ruler and who he represents. We are ready to pounce with envy in our heart, “Yeah, Jesus, stick it to the rich guy” as if this gets back at the affluent people whom we know. Let the rocks fly! This event is recorded in three of the four Gospels. But only one of those three give us an interesting insert and from a very surprising source. There is no denying that out of all the men who surrounded Jesus, Peter was a man’s man. He wasn’t afraid to say what was on his mind. And whereas John the Beloved is often ascribed with using more love words in his letters in the Bible, Peter of all men (through the gospel of Mark) gives an insight of Jesus. Mark 10:21 says, “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” There is a tremendous number of things spoken of in this singular verse that could easily be used for a sermon or another writing, but there are two things—one I’ll address briefly and then the other with a little more digging—that I wish to lift. The first is what Peter (through Mark) said, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” If that right there isn’t enough to make us drop our stones to be ready to hurl at this guy (the wealthy people whom he figuratively represents) it should also have us consider something else. All of us, whether we were down and out, had to look up to see the bottom, and seemingly had it all together when we came to the point of salvation, we were all sinners, condemned to Hell, and we are all—until we arrive in heaven—are a work in progress for the remainder of our lives. We poopoo over the newer Christian who walks away from God but ignore the reality that there are people who also walk away from the Lord, ministry, and a life of righteousness even after decades of serving and living for God. I say that to say that we are all works in progress and all who need Jesus (and us) to “look at him/her and loved him/her”.
The second thing I wish to look at through a figurative lens and also only from the gospel of Mark are the remaining words of Jesus’ command toward the rich young ruler. Again, this is worthy of a separate writing altogether, but what I lift from this specific lens I chose is the singular word “surrender” (of which I’ve written about the topic numerous times). But with all the discounting, fakery, and sharp criticism that we heap upon ourselves, the elephant in the room never gets addressed. While speaking toward someone in this arena, we kid-glove the conversation with lots of encouraging words to only realize that our words have very little weight. We really don’t know what to say. But the elephant that needs to be addressed was a matter I first discovered while reading a book several years ago by Watchman Nee and it truly cornered me and my walk and that is the matter of surrender. We accept Jesus, the blessed gift of salvation that seems too good to be true, and so if we are further blessed to be in a church who cares about our walk with God, then we struggle with finding our place. We struggle with value because of words or years of rejection to somehow find our worth and dignity. We get involved with fixing our Christianity as if accepting Jesus to forgive us ends His job and now it is up to us to stay saved. Righteousness is our job. We attempt to rise to the challenge as if it really is a challenge to combat those pre-salvation mindsets and accusations against us by doing it by our strength, intellect, speaking the right words, or as if the measured ingredients can be poured out just right and voila, we have a Christian who has their place. Additionally, because of the alleged little value we bring in, we somehow incorrectly believe that God sees us as the same: little value, what a mess, and where do I (the Lord) begin with this person? We attempt to limp along to only discover years later that we are still struggling with what we struggled with from the beginning of the marathon journey of the Christian life. We do make good, right, and godly decisions. We may even have served and explored a number of ministries. We give. We involve ourselves to whatever degree.
But something still lacks. And it is that same thing the rich young ruler faced as well as billions upon billions throughout time also lack and need to come face to face with. Surrender. Surrender how? Two scriptures may help us discover the answer. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says (emphasis added), “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Romans 14:7-8 says (emphasis added), “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” In of ourselves, we cannot save ourselves, we cannot heal what life and years have stolen, and we cannot redeem what another took from us. But when our life is not our own; when we have truly—well beyond a prayer a salvation—surrendered our lives, and as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, by dying daily, it is Jesus who increases and we decrease. Let us word it a different way. There is a person called an appraiser. He or she looks upon something—money, precious metals or stones, property, vehicle, etc.—to establish a value or worth. That house is worth $125,000, that car is worth $8,000, etc. But for us—our lives—that role is exclusively alone is God who is the appraiser. When we stop listening to those who place value upon our lives and allow God to speak, it matters not what we do or don’t do or how mature our walk is or how long we have been stumbling along the way, we belong to God. True, we do need to grow and we do need to grow fruit in/through our lives. As I have been reaching nearer to the end of the biography of Adoniram Judson, he realized how much he focused on certain things to be evident in people’s lives before he would baptize them and evaluated a value upon the person as to whether they will eventually make it to the Kingdom. But during his absence from the ministry while being in prison and whatnot, little did he realize that God all along was winning people to Jesus through the Burmans doing it themselves. Yes, they need accountability and leadership and to be fed. But because these Burmans found their personal revelation for who God is, it was a natural byproduct to witness, to serve, to give, to love, to forgive, to be involved even despite many whose lives were cut short through prison, torture, death, and starvation. I do not sugarcoat the reality of life as a Christian because for those who truly develop a true revelation for who God is—again, beyond a prayer of salvation and the words we hear behind a pulpit or Bible study—come what may come we know that we know that we know. Romans 4:20-22 says, “[Abraham (and Sarah)] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’”
To which I would like to bring in something else concerning this matter of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham performed a number of acts of faith concerning the promises of God and fought for them (i.e. chasing away the birds of prey). But when Abraham was within a whisker of taking his son’s Isaac’s life, we see God steps in. We continue to focus on the life of Abraham for the remainder of his life and narrative recorded in Genesis. But recently another picture of this event became clear. The job of a parent is to pass on knowledge and experience to their child—fixing a car, baking bread, sewing clothes, working a job to support a family, how to love your spouse, how to be honest, how to respect authority, etc.—but Abraham in this event taught his son Isaac another lesson beyond the acts or teaching knowledge and it being passed down. Abraham taught Isaac in that moment about surrender. As a parent (and I believe this was a moment that Abraham was getting at with Issac), we can teach our children to go to a prayer room and give a list of names and needs, but we cannot teach them how to connect with God. That is learned or a personal revelation for who God is. We can teach our kids how to worship God, read His Word, to put money in the offering plate, do the right thing, apply His Word in real-life situations (to a point on this latter matter). But a personal revelation gives the reason for why. Personal revelation reveals the miracle and refines our Christian character and walk. That comes from beyond the acts of obedience. That cannot be taught or simply read or heard. Just like passion and discipleship cannot be taught; it can only be caught from a personal revelation. This is why each disciple (including Judas Iscariot) took away a personal understanding of who and why for Jesus Christ. A head knowledge of God would never be enough for longevity in Issac. Abraham knew this. Promises will only be words of promises without a true and personal embracing of that promise through the revelation of who God is. Hebrews 11:6 says (emphasis added), “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Acts of sacrifice are just that: acts. Ministry and finding value in what we do is just that: doing. But when we discover what God sees. And we accept what God sees—and we need to stop listing our faults because it is so easy to do when this is said—then everything we do—morning prayer, giving in the offering plate, prayer before church service or outreach or ministry, attending church services and Bible studies, serving the community, how we conduct ourselves at work, the list literally is limitless—then all that matters is Him. Ephesians 2:4-5 and 8-10 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
So what is the will of God? What was I created to do? Can God use my life? We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. This meaning of our value truly is God’s will through a surrendered life allows us to have a personal revelation for who God is.