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God Uses Ordinary People in Extraordinary Ways

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20131009_ordinary

God uses ordinary people in exordinary ways for His glory.

At first it may seem that that statement isn’t quite right and you may not believe it. After all aren’t only “super Christians” used by God?” You may be thinking, “I’m just a lay person what can God do with you?” Rather than thinking in terms of whether or not you have a seminary degree or extensive ministry experience I want you to go back to the Gospels. Remember the Apostles were uneducated and had no formal theological training before they met Jesus. They walked with Jesus for three years day and night, watching Him perform miracles and hearing Him teach them personally and as He taught others. Do you think that this Jesus the One who called men to follow Him is concerned about titles after one’s name? Don’t get me wrong earning degrees are great, but earning degrees is not ultimate unless they are yielded in submission to King Jesus and used for His glory. God took a shepherd boy and made Him King of Israel. God used a donkey after all to deliver a message. God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways.

First, you may be reading this article and thinking you can never be used by God.

This is exactly what Satan wants you to think. You may think, “I’m totally unworthy to be used by God.” If people only knew, you say how much of a miserable sinner I am they wouldn’t want to hear from me at all. Hogwash! All of us are miserable sinners. Unless you’ve acknowledged your unworthiness you are not ready to be used by God. The fact that you think that you are “totally unworthy” tells me that you are in fact ready to be used by God. I say this of course because mentioning “you are totally unworthy” tells me that you align yourself with Isaiah who humbled himself before the glory of God in Isaiah 6. Isaiah acknowledged he was a man of unclean lips. You are a sinner in need of God’s grace so the fact you acknowledge that shows me you are ready to testify of His grace at work in and through your life.

Second, you may think, “I’m such a failure that God can never use me.”

Look at the Apostle Peter. Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times (Matthew 26:34). Peter’s response was he would not deny Jesus (Matthew 26:35). Here’s the thing, Peter did deny Jesus three times and Jesus saw it (Matthew 26:69-75). Imagine that you are the Apostle Peter the leader of the Apostles and a member of the inner circle of the Son of God Jesus Christ and you deny him three times. You would feel devastated, shame and guilt ridden. You say, “I’m such a failure that God can never use you” but that isn’t true. God uses our failure, hardship and trials for His glory. He turns what was meant for bad and uses it to testify to His grace. You say that you are a failure and yet God says because of the finished work of Christ you are victorious. The Apostle Peter went on to be mightily used of God because He was broken by God. You may be broken right now but in due season God will build you up and use you for His glory. Don’t run from Him run to Jesus. God uses ordinary people for His glory.

Third, you may have many degrees but God uses humble people.

Look at the Apostle Paul. Paul was one of the most educated men of his day and yet God brought him low in Acts 9. God opened his eyes to the beauty and glory of Jesus. Once Paul knew Jesus all of his education, gifts and talents were directed towards the Gospel.  The Lord uses those humbled by a vision of His greatness and glory to testify to the proud and religious of the splendor of His glory. The Lord humbled the Apostle Paul and used him mightily to plant churches, preach the Gospel, write 13 epistles and so much more. God can use educated people for His glory but He often humbles them of their pride so they will rely on Him.

Fourth, the story of the Bible is God using ordinary people in extraordinary ways.

Think of your favorite biblical character or person from church history. Before they were “well-known” they were unknown. The Lord takes nobodies and makes them somebody all by His grace. At the start of my ministry I experienced a great deal of success. That success got to my head and rather than directing it towards God and giving Him glory, I let it go to my head. Several years later the Lord shows me my pride and arrogance about this and I repented. He showed me in reading His Word that He used those who were broken and humble rather than those who were haughty. He showed me from His Word that He cares about holiness and growth in His grace. You may think you are the biggest thing to hit the Christian scene but if you think that you are not interested in serving others or glorifying God. Ministry is about serving others and making much of God.

Finally, God has given each person a gift to steward for His glory.

You may not have many gifts, talents or abilities but every single Christian can be mightily used of God. Charles Spurgeon was converted to Gospel under the preaching a lay preacher. Martin Luther was convicted of his sin and came to saving faith after studying the books of Psalms and Romans. Your story may be completely different than that, but whatever gift, talent, or ability God has given you—use it for His glory. Whatever influence whether great or small use it for His glory. God may not give you a great deal of influence and that is okay. Focus not on the breadth of your ministry but on the depth of your ministry from God’s Word. Remember, it is not the most able who are blessed in their ministry it is the most holy.

God uses broken people and makes them whole.

God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways for His glory. God used a lawyer in high school to disciple me to grow in His grace. He’s also used many “ordinary” people with no Bible college or seminary education to disciple me. God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways as a testimony for His grace and glory. So, the next time you feel you are a failure, that your sin disqualifies you from service or you are better than someone—remember the Gospel. The Gospel that saved you, is sanctifying you and will one day glorify you is the power of God. God uses all sorts of people with all sorts of gifts, talents and abilities as a testimony of His grace that His name would be made famous among the nations.  God uses ordinary people in extraordinary ways to advance His Gospel.

If you are hungering for more of God, and desire to be used by Him then use whatever gifts, talents and abilities you have and direct them in the right direction towards God, motivated by a desire for His glory by using your God-given gifts and talents in the local Church and beyond to edify God’s people and expand the Kingdom of God. Then you will join the multitude of ordinary saints before you who became extraordinary because they served a God who is glorified not by self-serving people but people who are humbled by His grace and holy before Him. As Robert Murray McCheyne once said, “A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.” In other words, if we are constantly making our own spiritual progress, advancing in Christ-likeness, growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), we will find to whatever degree God has determined, His blessing will follow in our wake. Entrust whatever ministry and whatever gifts you have to God, and use them in His power energized by His Spirit for His glory. Watch as God grows you in His grace and uses you in extraordinary ways in the lives of His people for His glory.

Comments

  1. Thank God for those who open themselves for the purposes of our Father. Jhn 14:10-11
    The humble, meek, the broken heart and contrite spirit is exactly where we need to be. Psa 34:8
    This is where we diminish, where the Father in us is more evident. 2Cr 12:9-10
    SELF-ish-ness and pride are the font of unrighteousness, offense, of sin.
    Stand aside and know Jesus. Pray that His perfect work is freed from our interference. Isaiah did not confess his vileness, he was diminished, there was nothing else that would come from his lips before the ultimate, the purity of almighty.

    Thank you Dave, this is a most serious message for us to hear. The gift of our Father is peace. In Him we gain confidence as He becomes greater in our lives. We hear much of faith and in this way we come to know it. There is nothing that we bring into His work as Jesus said the Father that dwells in me does the work. So now there are none unworthy because we all are unworthy. Love the Lord our God and become more like Him because He is love. Be strong in Jesus because those without Him suffer violence. Our testimony then is Jesus as violence assaults us.

    • What do you have to say about the “spiritual Israel” false teaching mentioned in one of those commemorative comments about Chuck Smiths death?

      J.

      P.s. “spiritual Israel” is not in scripture and a figment of the imagination.

      • True, Israel is the specific identification of a people for His Name. All other people are gentiles. There is the Church that is the body of Christ. There are those who are called the children of God. There is the Bride. The difference between the 2 testaments is the promise of God made possible by His sacrifice, His blood. The New Testament is not a place, it is Spirit. The vine, grown up through Israel is Who the Church is grafted into. There is one God. His name is Jesus. Israel and the Church will worship our Father Who is the image of God.

        • But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. Rom 2:29
          These are the true Jews, the people for His Name. The Church that is the body of Christ includes both Jew and Gentile. Eph 2:13-22
          Acts 15:6-11
          The Church is to grow onto perfection. Phl 3:13-15

  2. Thank you Dave for this wonderful post. Each moment of every ordinary day give us opportunity to walk out who we are in Him. In those ordinary mundane moments we witness who we are in Christ more loudly and in more convincing ways than the most ardent preacher of God’s Word. An hour long oration that touches our spirits and blesses us cannot do, either for or against the cause for Christ, what we with our simple lives do every day. We can either damage Christ with our lives as a witness or bring others to Him. We are doing either one or the other every moment.

    Dealing with the public can be very irksome at times and it can be very hard to show God’s love to the pesky masses. Sometimes you want to be dismissive to others who seem unappealing or annoying. When I’m feeling this way it always helps me when the HS whispers, “This might be the angel unaware”. That snaps me right out of it and back to the humility and loving attitude I’ve asked the Lord to help me sustain.

    We’re becoming more and more dismissive as technology advances. Satan has used gadgetry to keep us from the human interaction that touches peoples lives. The high tech world that we thought would make life easier has sapped us of everything that we once held sacred. There’s a soul sucking cyber snake behind these gadgets and he’s keeping us from being present in our moments which are really His moments. It’s so much more fulfilling to interact with a human than a plastic box. I am so blessed and happy that I listened to the Spirit when He told me not to carry a cell phone. I keep an emergency cell in the car and never use one for anything else. It’s amazing the things and people you can see and interact with when a box isn’t stuck to your ear.

    All the people in the bible were just people like we are. They were used of God to convey God’s messages to humanity and the bible is so rich with stories of plain men and women whose lives were transformed and then used to speak to us about our God, our world and ourselves. Thanks Dave for this wonderful godly post.

    I’m not sure why I’m having a anti-gadget moment but it just makes me wanna say…. Please silence your ringer. God’s call isn’t in there!

    🙂 hehe!

  3. If YOU’RE up for some critical comments of what YOU wrote, then allow ME. Dialoguing is welcome.

    Understanding the point of the short essay is against self-centered thought and a refocusing toward JESUS alone and focusing on the last paragraph there are more than several words and word phrases used that do not accomplish that goal and instead direct the reader inward rather than toward JESUS.

    For example, the word “you” is used 7 times, the phrases “you are hungering”, “desire to be used”, “use whatever”, “motivated by a desire”, “using your”, “to edify”, “who became extraordinary”, “they served”, “we will find”, “in our wake”, “gifts you have”, “use them”, “grows you”, “uses you” all contain an inward directed focus of thought. It is difficult to write a self-motivational piece of literature without inward directed speech, but our faith, as you point out in your piece, is not about self-motivation. We are… but our faith is not. We are instructed to “follow” HIM, “trusting” as HE goes before us. Just “follow” and “trust”, blind faith, and HE takes care of the rest.

    J.

    P.s. I tried my best to not use any inward directing words in my second paragraph, call me out if I erred. Also, let the reader understand I agree with the intended lesson of your short essay.

    • Jerry,

      I appreciate your intended remarks and note the intended spirit in which they are given. With that said “you” is an acceptable form of making an appeal to someone and it is in that spirit I use you; not to point at myself or point readers to self (as you seem to think) but to make a personal appeal that they will personally apply what is said to their own lives. I would also like for you to note in the first sentence while appealing to you I point the person to God. I said, “If you are hungering for more of God, and desire to be used by Him then use whatever gifts, talents and abilities you have and direct them in the right direction towards God, motivated by a desire for His glory by using your God-given gifts and talents in the local Church and beyond to edify God’s people and expand the Kingdom of God.”

      You said, “Understanding the point of the short essay is against self-centered thought and a refocusing toward JESUS alone and focusing on the last paragraph there are more than several words and word phrases used that do not accomplish that goal and instead direct the reader inward rather than toward JESUS.” While I understand and appreciate what you said in your comments I will disagree that it is my intention to point people towards themselves. As I noted already I am pointing people towards God and even indicate that in the last paragraph by pointing people towards Jesus. Lastly, I appreciate time you took to point out what you felt, but would appreciate it even more next time if you asked a clarifying question such as, “Did you mean for this to come across this way?” and then state your concern.

      • No need to disagree. I didn’t need a clarification and I do not think it was your intent to point readers toward themselves and as I wrote I understood and agree with your thoughts, but wanted to point out a mistake on your part in that you may not have realized was happening and apologize if you read that into my critique. We often get caught up in our own zeal while communicating a thought concerning scripture and any kind of criticism is often difficult to swallow.

        Yes, there are not too many ways to discuss the intended audience without pointing them out, especially with motivational speaking or writing as a career. As “Yochanan the immerser” did, so must we in making all effort in whatever craft we put our hand to always point to HIM. You will find this difficult in expounding the Gospel message to others in that format. We just have the tendency to let our flesh leak out onto the page, Isa 64:6 HNV. We truly have nothing of our own possession to offer HIM. I’ll say again, Trust and follow HIM alone, this is all we need do and that is the Gospel message at its core. Anything else is in addition to what has been written in scripture, I’ll refer you to Steve Morrow on that matter though.

        J.

  4. There is a loving manner and a taunting manner. Come let us reason together or, I challenge you to prove. Jam 3:17
    I hope to share the peace of our Father with all who attend and comment on these pages. We are blessed by all the aspects of our God revealed through the thoughts shared by the timid and courageous here. We all have sinned.
    Rev 12:10
    Accusation is not the manner of Jesus. There comes the judgment. Pray to be forgiven not according to our own forgiveness but in the love that forfeits life itself to recover the lost. God is love. The peace of God that passes all understanding be with “my” brethren on these pages.

  5. Hi Dave

    I’ve entered into a new season in my walk with the Lord and have been a little panicked over what I should do verses what know I can do in God (because of stuff going on around me) but in the mist of this is a definite call to just wait.

    I got saved in ’89 and eighteen months later got a burden and visions of revival. In ’96 I had an encounter with the Lord, at the time I was in a crisis of Love I’d got with my small group leader to pray for a resolve and about six weeks into this I had an encounter with the Lord where He asked me what I wanted, I said love (I was primed for that encounter) anyway I got far more than I ask for, as back then I just wanted an opinion.

    I have no theology, no training and no mentor I’m just ordinary but have been able to stay on track over the years against often great opposition in the body of Christ that’s constant since ’97, I’ve had three separate seasons of suicide panic attacks because of Christians tried to force me to believe bad things about myself. My son Mark dies age 20 of an epileptic fit on his dads birthday and finds him dead that same day. Because my own leadership could not be trusted with my work I’ve spent years writing about this move of God over the internet. So I know what I’ve got carries weight.

    For years the spirit says I’ll know when and lately been experiencing more of the presence of God, your last couple of sentences really seems to sum up how stepping in this new season will work, which makes sense. A recent dream revealed I’m paralysed by fear as I know my decision to go in this direction with God has not been taken lightly. What those last two sentences means for me That God has the final say about the timing of when the brides glory is revealed not man. Because that was the revelation (scriptural mechanics behind the brides anionting available right now) I got back in ’96

    Blessing in Christ
    Much thanks Patricia Upton

    ps John 7;38 that does Joel 2;28 that has its source at Rev 22:1 we are in the Jewish year of 5999 and have 2 sets of full blood red moons starting next spring, the first set all fall on a feast day of the Lord not to mention the comet currently approaching our inner solar system even Perry Stone has an opinion about that.
    thank you again

  6. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently: I Peter 1:22

  7. Thank you bothers for your posting. I just found your forum and plan to join the dialog where appropriate. May the Lord continue to lead us to His treasure.

  8. Brother, they do so in ignorance. They will not be chastised, it will only anger them. It is natural to resist judgment. You are brought into their presence that they may be exposed to the Spirit of our Father. Your confidence, your faith in Jesus is true. I pray with you for them that the Lord will call them and they will be enlightened.
    Jud 1:9-10, Hbr 12:14-15, Phl 4:8, Gal 5:22-23

  9. Awesome… Thank Jesus… I gave up years ago since I could not bear reaching the next level of Gods glory. Well said.