|
Yes, God Is Looking for You!
|
 |
God longs to place His names on us -- every one of them! God delights in seeing us carry His name in a way that helps to make Him known for who He really is. How do we rightly carry His name? By holding it in the highest regard in our hearts, by hallowing it. We must esteem, admire, honor, respect, praise, and cherish the unspeakable treasure of His glory. This is how we are to carry God's name; this is how we hallow it in our hearts.
God wants to reveal His greatness through us. Scripture says,
"For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people."
-- I Samuel 12:22
God is not up in Heaven saying, "Okay, since I said I would forgive you, I'll forgive you because I have to. I'll forgive you, but I'm not going to use you."
This is not what God wants to do. He does not want to withhold from us the privilege of service to Him. God is pleased to make us His people, and this means being a people marked by His name.
We live in an exciting and profound season, for God is calling us into our destiny. He is calling us to boldly bear His name by walking out His character in the daily routine and mundane reality of our lives. C.S. Lewis wrote, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." There are too many mud pies lying around.
Sadly, in the face of such an invitation, many of us may still say things like, "But I'm so weak." We may even whine a little, and then say, "But I'm in a spiritual hospital bed and I am being fed intravenously right now . . . I've been this way for the last twenty-five years." Or we may think up any number of other excuses to avoid the submission it takes to fully carry the blessing and authority of God's name. We settle for mediocrity, for being lukewarm.
"GOD IS NOT AFRAID OF OUR WEAKNESSES"
To all of us, God says, "You are the perfect candidate, because in your weakness I will be shown strong."
I have noticed something in Scripture: Anytime God wants to do something truly remarkable, He looks for the weakest person He can find to do it. A perfect example of this principle is the life of Gideon.
Gideon received a powerful angelic visitation, as God called him to lead the Israelites to victory (Judges 6). Gideon was unmoved by God's faith in him. Instead, he answered: "God, do You have any clue who I am? Don't You know I'm from the tribe of Manasseh? Don't You know that the tribe of Manasseh is the weakest tribe in all of Israel? And not only that, my family is the weakest clan in the tribe of Manasseh. Even more, I'm the weakest in all my family! So You have got to be kidding!"
I can almost hear the Angel of the Lord chuckle as he answered, "Yes, Gideon . . . God has looked all over for you."
We need to know that God is not afraid of our weakness. He wants us to get out of our spiritual hospital beds, rip the intravenous tubes out of our arms, and boldly declare, "Here I am, Lord! Send me!"
by John Paul Jackson
Streams Ministries International
www.streamsministries.com
