Archive for June 2nd, 2009

Throughout my life in church I have always heard the expression that God will put you on a self if you are not making your self approved.  Meaning that if we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing then God can not use us and He will simply shelve us away and let the dust settle.

As I study the scriptures I see that this is an incorrect way of thinking and I dare say that we need to put ourselves on that shelf so that God CAN work through us.  We spend so much time on this planet trying to put together the perfect formula to make ourselves holy that we miss what God is trying to do.   You hear church after church tell you that it is the amount that you give, or the amount of time that you spend praying, or the amount of time you spend reading that will solve all of your issues and make you a better person.  So what do we do?  We spend hour after hour feeling guilty for our humanity when that is exactly how God designed us.  And we then develop a feeling of inadequacy and think that we are a liability to God and His ministry.  So we then focus on getting our act together and it becomes all about us and not about God. 

When what we really need to understand is that we are already all that we need to be to God.  When He looks on those that are saved He sees us through the blood of Jesus Christ and we are complete, we are holy, we are righteous.  The fact is that once we died with Christ as a believer we are them usable by God.  Even in the things that we do that are sinful or are mistakes He uses them to change us or to change others but none the less we are used.  Christians get into a mindset that they have to reach a certain place before they can be used spiritually and this is simply not true.  Scripture tells us that upon accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior that we are filled with the Holy Spirit and then become a child of God.  The Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that

…we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;
2 Corinthians 4:7 NASB

The church has incorrectly taught that we have to live this certain lifestyle to make ourselves usable and that is not true.  What we should be teaching is that we as Christians have to get out of the way (and put ourselves on the shelf) so that God can work through us.  As the “earthen vessel” it is not our job to be the life it is our job to let the life flow out of us.  To use an analogy we as the clay jar are not supposed to be the contents as well as the jar…just the jar!  We must remember that we can not produce a Godly life, we can only express what God does through us.  We are to be a mirror image of what God is. 

So you say well how do I do this?  You must first know God intimately; now this is done through spending time with Him and His word.  It is not done through a checklist of activities and do’s and dont’s.  If you become intimate with God the do’s and dont’s will take care of themselves.  We must put ourselves on a shelf and let God live through us so that we can begin to live the life that is pleasing to God.