Fear because of Shame - Missing the Call

Started this morning with a small group of men joining together for words of encouragement. Just being there and hearing a few words from these men challenged me in my walk. Why does being around Christians seem to challenge us who are people of faith? As we see and hear about the lives of those who are in the scripture, sometimes we idolize them. We make them out to be superhuman and as a result the impact on our life is minimized.

What about Paul? We look at him and we are surely impressed by how God used him and the amazing things that he was able to accomplish, but he lived "back then." There is no way that God would, and we imply therefore "that He could," do that with me today. I know what you are thinking. No, I do not think that. That is foolish old Rick just rambling once again. If you, and I, are honest with ourselves we can see that our expectations about what God can do are very low. Just look at our lives. What was it that drove Paul? Was it himself? Paul wrote that God called him by His grace to share the gospel (Gal. 1:11). He was motivated by a call that had been placed upon him by God himself.

That would motivate anyone. Would it not. To be called by God to do something. I believe that would give us the strength to do anything. What does it mean to be called by God? Paul goes on in chapter one of 1 Cor. and speaks not of his call but of all Christians. He says in 1:26, "For consider your calling brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not..."

From that we see that he definitely is speaking of us (foolish, weak, base, despised). God chooses us not because of what we have to offer, but for something bigger. Paul goes on to say why God chose us. He says, "so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God." We can see from what Paul follows this up with in 1:31 that the reason for all of this is that we will only "boast in the Lord" and not in ourselves.

Why are we not boasting before the world? I think it is quiet often because we are still thinking that it is about what we can, and are, doing. Not about God and who He is and what He has done, and is doing. We will say, they know the things that I do so my credibility as a Christian is in question. True that we should be mindful of our walk before men, but we will fail. We will do crazy things and say crazy things and hurt people, etc. It is in these moments maybe, in our weakness, that God is most shown strong if we will just let Him. Let Him work through us by our willingness to see our wrongs and ask forgiveness and serve those we have hurt and harmed, in a Spirit of conviction that what God thinks is important to me.

Why did Paul do what he did? How could he suffer so much physical and emotion and cultural harm and still continue. It was not because he was strong, but because he knew that the people around him needed to see God's strength demonstrated. When he was beaten to a point that men typically died, God was glorified. He submitted himself continuously to this type of treatment because he knew that God, not himself, would carry him through.

God will do that for me also, if I will just move out of trust in Him. Believing that He will complete his work through me. I just need to be available to that end.

In this posting I have focused on how we do not do the things of God everyday, wherever we are. We think we cannot because people really know us. We compromise God being able to work through the very reason He called us and that is our weakness not our strengths. We should beg for His forgiveness for our lack of faith and our slavery to our fear, and then tell Him to open our eyes once again to those opportunities to share with those around us. He will do it.

Next time I am going to write about another fear we have that prevents us from being bold. We think that we do not know enough and therefore cannot defend what we believe.

Question for response: If God opens a door for you to share with someone and you do, will you tell us about it?