Are You Qualified?

I talk to many people who don't see themselves as the kind of person God could use in the growing grace revolution because of weakness in their lives or even sins they've committed. I hope you don't fit in that category. If you’re waiting to get your act together before you will step up to act as an ambassador of Christ, spreading His grace in this world, you’ll wait forever.

Don’t think for a moment that God uses people who have worked out their spirituality to the place where they’re in a different league than you. The truth is they are more like you than you may want to know, but you need to know it because, by knowing that there are no Super Saints, you may be more likely to believe that God can use you to advance the cause of His grace in this world and, even more difficult than that these days, in His church.

One guy said to me, “If you only knew the things I’ve done, you’d know why God couldn’t use me.” “Really?” I asked. “Are the things you’ve done worse than murder? Adultery? Stealing? Lying? Drunkenness?” Read the list of those mentioned in Hebrews 11, the “faith-chapter” that lists those set forth for us as examples of faith from biblical history. Look at their lives individually. They did everyone of those things and more.

As you consider their sins, remember that the sinful things they did were, for the most part, after they had been called by God and began to follow Him. So don’t try to fall back on the yeah-but-my-sins-were-done-after-I-trusted-Christ excuse. So was theirs.

Check out that list in Hebrews 11. Then go back and look at the things the Old Testament tells us about what they did. After doing that, you may be inclined to ask, “Is this the best God can do if He wants to give us a list of people who had great faith and were mightily used by Him?” Yes, it is. So don’t think God can’t use you.

Don’t believe for one minute that anybody who sets himself up above you today, as if he has some spiritual advantage you don’t have, is telling you the truth either. This whole idea of there being super-saints in the church today who are somehow different from the rest of us is an enemy tactic meant to discourage us from thinking God can use us. When we see them we may feel like we don’t measure up, but just remember looks can be deceiving.

In spite of the way some religious leaders present themselves to us, the truth is that people are just people. We all have the same kind of struggles, doubts, temptations and weaknesses. If you doubt that, then ask yourself again why God listed the kind of people He did in Hebrews 11. Maybe there’s a higher quality of saints in the world today? Maybe back then He listed them because there weren’t so many good examples as there are today? Yeah, right. You know that’s not true. People have always been the same and God has never looked for perfect people to use. He only looks for people who will completely trust Him – nothing else. You might not be able to clean up your act the way you’ve wanted to in the past but He isn’t asking you to do that. He’s just asking you to trust Him. You can do that much, can’t you?

I’m not suggesting that the gifts the Spirit has given to the church don’t distinguish some in ways that are different from others. What I am saying is that there are no second-class citizens in God’s kingdom and that you don’t have to think for one moment that you lack anything that would keep you from rising up at this very moment to be used by God. In Jesus Christ, you have been made complete because you have all of Him and in Him resides the fullness of Almighty God Himself.