The Seed Blog: Fits Like a Glove

Question: If the Rapture doesn’t occur in our lifetime, how many in this room are going to pass away at some point? How many will stand before Christ at the Bema Judgment and be accountable for how we have lived on this earth as His Bride? Obviously every one of us. But do we live like it? In that moment, as everything is laid bare before Our King. The actions and choices of the lives we are living right now will clearly establish just how much we have genuinely loved and trusted Him verses how much we have loved this life over Him: 2 Corinthians 5:10-11. We will be rewarded, entrusted, and assigned positions of honor and authority (positions closer to Jesus) according to what we have done in devotion to Him that reflected what was sincerely important to us in this life: 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. So, stop and ponder: are you building with gold, silver and costly stones, or hay and straw? What things in our lives, right now that seem so important to us that we give so much time and effort towards building and protecting, that we base so much of our very identity, pride and self-worth upon will instantly not even matter to us in the slightest? Maybe even be shameful to us in that moment because of the improperly placed significance it held? How are we spending the lives He bought with His Sacrifice? Consider the Judgment we experience on that Day will only be for us to see and understand our own hearts clearly because He already knows our hearts at this very moment: Jeremiah 17:10.

As Jesus tirelessly and passionately ministered to broken and lost people, look at His comment to His disciples: Matthew 9:36-38. Jesus, in His great love for lost and hurting people, asked the disciples to pray to the Father for more believers to join them in His Work to heal and save His desperately loved children. Many of the lost want to know Him, there is just no one willing to tell them. Do we know He is real? Do we know we are His creation? Do we know we were made in His image for fellowship as His Bride? Are we are literally saved from death and judgment by His lost life? Do we know He has a dire life and death mission for us to join in which encompasses all His love, desire and focus on this earth? Then we need to answer this question for ourselves: why do we feel so entitled and obsessed with: living our own lives the way we choose; not caring about the wandering, tortured people around us [instead, even resenting them]? Not caring about the pain and desperation that drives Our Creator every second on earth; not thinking about (much less involving ourselves) in loving, touching, helping, saving those broken around us with the few precious minutes we have left in this world? If we reviewed the life we have as it will be seen by Our God in that soon coming moment, based upon how our love for Him alone has led our decisions, goals, and accomplishments our life, and if we remove all other apparent successes and gains simply done for our own success and satisfaction, many of us—even some of the most successful and popular would only hear this simple summary of our lives: “They were born, they lived empty lives, they died…” and nothing of eternal worth, nothing of selfless giving to His Kingdom, nothing of genuine love and sacrifice would be spoken of.
To everyone here who sincerely loves and trusts Jesus as their Savior, I can only find two possible things that keep us from living completely to do His Will first in life. 1) is that we have become so successful and assumedly needed in other areas of life, and we are just too engulfed in our important or lucrative lives, and we just can’t find the time or don’t want to interrupt our successes to serve right now or 2) we genuinely feel that we are not someone He can use. We feel we are simple and ordinary, one of countless others who are just as good or better, and that God will never use me to do anything significant. He should use someone more worthy and talented, maybe less sinful and tainted. Scriptures clearly and powerfully address each of these situations if you do want to follow Our King with all your heart, and you know that you are not serving Him wholeheartedly.
There was a powerful, well known, even revered and feared man named Saul of Tarsus in 1st Century Israel. See how he described his life: Philippians 3:4-6. In his time and culture, Saul had everything: respect, education, power, righteousness, money—all brought by a very successful ministry. The only problem being that ministry actually worked against Christ. And he was too caught up in his position of importance in his own perspective of life to see the reality of Who Christ truly was in Scriptures. Before Saul could ever be used of Christ, he had to have a complete epiphany of just Who Christ was in life, of how important He was in life and a complete change of priorities: Acts 9:3-6. Saul realized that everything he considered important and successful actually hurt the work of Jesus in his life. Then, in a very concrete, literal way, Jesus showed him that he had been blind to real truth of life, and had never really had control over what he considered success: Acts 9:7-9. Saul, who later became known as Paul, went on to accomplish some of the most astounding feats recorded in Scriptures, leading many to Christ; healing many, and writing two-thirds of the New Testament. But He could do nothing in his own success and power. All of his own works, education and authority were useless to God. Before he could be used Saul had to: have a heart-felt realization of his own weakness before Christ—a realization that he had nothing of needed value to God. He had to decide that nothing he held of value before truly amounted to anything in light of God’s real treasure, which was Oneness with Him, love for others and an eternity in acceptance and peace. How did Saul change from a successful man in a broken world, to someone God would use to change that world? He set himself apart for God alone (turned from his work and fasted and prayed for three days), and then his understanding of who Jesus really is changed his entire perspective on life: 2 Corinthians 12:9; Philippians 3:7-8, 10. Saul realized two things: 1) He had no real power or success apart from God. Just a temporary, useless distraction for a time. 2) Nothing he counted as valuable really mattered in life. When you are finally ready for Jesus to use you (like Saul), you have to grasp—in a real, true, passionate sense—being used is more important than your reputation, your money or security, your success; being used is not possible through your own power and strength. Then, like Saul, change whatever is necessary to follow Christ in His will and strength; no longer trusting your own ways, but Him alone, and just let HIim give you a worth and love for others that surpasses your desire for control or success; that brings new purpose and drive to your being. Then watch how much more God can do through you.
Gideon, a very common nobody in the Old Testament was questioning why God didn’t do something about the terrible situation Israel was facing, questioning where all the Power of God was that he had heard about in days past: Judges 6:13-14. God’s answer was “I am waiting on you. I use My people… Are you ready to do something about it?” How many people in this room right now complain about the shape our nation is in? The shape our church is in? The craziness and the sinfulness of our culture? And yet you feel it is always up to someone else to be used of God to change things? God is still waiting on us, just like Gideon, to see if we care enough, love enough, trust enough to be the ones used to make a change. But often our sincere response to this thought is just like Gideon’s: Judges 6:15. I come from nothing, I am nothing, I have nothing. How can I do anything to help others? And honestly, this is so often a sincere and real dilemma in the logic of the world, but God gives a different logic: Judges 6:16. God compared Gideon to a loaf of barley bread (the bread of the very poorest, in Gideon’s day). But in a dream to Gideon’s enemies, God showed that common loaf, as their destroyer. God made it clear that He did not need Gideon’s power or skills; that it would all be done in the power of God alone. Does this not sound exactly like the answer which God gave to Saul? When Saul thought he was the power and skill to be used? It’s not your power, but God’s. Do you realize that when Jesus was choosing a handful of men and women to change and rock the entire world throughout all history that He chose common, overlooked, unskilled, ignorant, blue-collar fisherman? He chose demon-possessed sinners (Mary Magdalene). He chose political and militant radicals (Simon the Zealot). He chose traitorous, rejected misfits (Matthew the Tax Collector). Do you fit in any if these descriptions? You’re hired! 1 Corinthians 1:27-29. The very next thing God told Gideon to do: Judges 6:25-26. Gideon was told to completely destroy the fake gods in his life; to pull down the things that were keeping him from serving God wholeheartedly, that were drawing him away from trusting only in his Savior. It was not Gideon’s weaknesses, or lack of recognition that kept him from being unusable by God, but the fact that he believed it was all up to him to accomplish work made for God and the fact that he had not set himself apart from the things that kept him from walking in God’s Will. In short, He was distracted from his God and defeated by his own inability. Does this sound like most of us today?
Let’s bring the two mindsets together 1) thinking we are so important that we miss God’s Work 2) thinking we are not even useable enough for His Work.
Why do we wear gloves? To protect our hands, right? To do jobs we can’t normally do as effectively. In the QC Lab at Toyota, I wear extremely thick, insulated gloves to protect me as I handle parts that are 400°F. And other gloves as I handle parts that can oxidize to protect the part from damage by my contamination. This is how God wants to work in us, wants to use us to touch this world. He made us in His Image, just as the glove is a perfect image of our hand. And yet, we are vulnerable, and weak on our own, and we contaminate, and damage on our own. But Christ paid the ultimate price to make us acceptable again, to make us One with Him again through His Own spilled Blood. He Promises to do something unthinkable and awesome: Luke 24:49. Jesus Said that we wear the Spirit like a garment like a glove that covers us perfectly. This is how we are used by God when we are not able or worthy on our own. We have to surrender to His will and strength, put Him on and cover ourselves completely. Then we can handle things which would be impossible otherwise because He is our protection and strength; then we can touch others without hurting or contaminating them because we are covered by His Love, not our natural selfishness.
Here is the biggest truth for us all to grasp today. We just examined how to be used of God whether we think we are too important, or too weak. Not so we could choose to serve God more if we decide we would like to go deeper, but because God commands us all to give ourselves completely to His Will—to die to self and live as Christ; to set ourselves apart for His Works prepared for us since before we knew Him—because He has already given Himself for us completely and in passion, He asks the same of His beloved. In this world we live in right now, never in our lifetime have there been fewer laborers for Christ. If you are serious about loving Him, being One with Him, trusting Him with your life as you say you have done. Now is the time to stop just talking about serving Him, to quit just singing about serving Him, and put on the gloves. Be honest with yourself about why you are not totally given to Him, whether it be that your life is too important or you don’t feel worthy. And do what Scriptures say will bring His Power into your life so that you can be used for His Kingdom. Set yourself apart from all that tempts and distracts. Admit the sins in your life, recognize the false gods you serve, and burn them with passion to please Him. Then stop looking at yourself either way. Don’t trust your own great ability, but realize you have nothing He truly needs without His love and strength working through you. And don’t be paralyzed by your own weaknesses, but realize He will carry you. He will get even more Glory through your inability. Just surrender to Him completely; let His Spirit cover you and He will carry you the rest of the way: Philippians 2:13. We have the ability to be the literal answer to Jesus’ Own Prayer for more laborers to love His people. There is nothing else more important in your life than serving Him above all else: Ephesians 2:10.