What a question!
However, the question alone highlights the fact that so many people have no real idea of their authority or ministry in Christ. Just about the most used scripture in prophetic utterances is in Jeremiah 29,
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares The LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.
This one verse alone says, in other words, that God has a plan to use all of us in His Kingdom work.
So, God has a plan to use you; He wants to use you; but . . . . .
What? How? When? Where?
Many shepherds know their calling well and are obedient to it, but I find it incredible that so many pastors, leaders, teachers, and others who invade one pulpit or another each week seem to have no idea of God’s actual plan for their own lives.
They are doing, not what God necessarily really called them to do, but what they think they have been called upon to do. And, I might add, most of them are doing it entirely to their own perceived satisfaction.
We may rest assured that if God has called us, and if we have heard that call rightly, then God is going to use YOU in ways you never imagined — because He’s in you and He wants to reach through you and touch the world around you.
Isn’t that simply amazing? It makes the opening question a little bit irrelevant, doesn’t it?
I am always delighted to read Isaiah 6:1-10 [below], where God called Isaiah and told him exactly what he was to do.
The LORD did exactly the same to Jeremiah. God told him exactly what to do — not only that, but what to expect to happen as well.
I am pretty certain He did the same with Elijah and Elisha, too — as well as several others throughout the history of the Old Testament.
If we listen properly, God will tell us the job(s) He is calling us to do as well.
I feel God is calling ‘all hands to the pump’ at the moment.
There is a mighty move of God coming and many, many souls will be saved.
Yet this means that we need to prepare ourselves to be ready to fulfill the Great Commission at a moment’s notice.
God is calling many to be carriers of His presence and carriers of His Word. He is calling others to disciple the newcomers into our midst.
Church is about to get a bit messy.
I once heard that if your Church is a place where the ladies can leave their purses unattended for an hour or so, then that is a ‘dead Church,’ because there is no new growth to shepherd!
A Church where all the new folk can go and get discipling will be a dangerous place for unattended purses — until the newcomers learn the new way that Christ leads them.
Things will be messy — but they will be exciting and vibrant places too.
New converts are hungry for God, and they need good feeding. But their old habits may die a bit hard and slowly, so we need to guard against placing temptation in their path.
They need care and love and lots more besides. They need nurturing and growing in their new faith.
That’ll be our job — yours and mine.
We are to disciple those who will disciple others.
We are to make disciples who will make disciples!
Can God use you? You betcha, He can!!
Isaiah Called to Be a Prophet
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw The LORD sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is The LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”
Also I heard the voice of The LORD, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.”” Isaiah 6:1-10.
“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;” 1 Corinthians 1:27.
Featured Image by pick-ee from Pixabay
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