I’ve been taking an online writing course through ACFW and somehow, the conversation turned to callings. This took another detour to time constraints and learning to say no to the good in order to have time for the better. And although I do think we need to be intentional about our time, I believe we have a lot more of it than we realize…or perhaps than we care to admit. More importantly, I believe God can do more with the time we have than we truly believe.
Do we really understand who we are in Christ? Once we trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Creator of the Universe dwells within us. We are given the mind of Christ, are set on God’s course and are equipped with everything we need to stay the course.
In Francis Chan’s Forgotten God, he asks some thought-provoking questions and makes some powerful statements:
“When we are referring to God, balance is a huge mistake. God is not just one thing we add to the mix called life. He wants an invitation from us to permeate every part of us.” (p. 20) “And perhaps the core issue is really about our holding back from giving ourselves to God, rather than our getting “too much” of Him.” (p. 21) “After all, if the Holy Spirit moves, nothing can stop Him.” (p. 18) “Without Him, people operate in their own strength and only accomplish human-size results. The world is not moved by love or actions that are of human creation…But when believers live in the power of the Holy Spirit, the evidence in their lives is supernatural.” “I think the fear of God failing us leads us to “cover for God”. This means we ask for less, expect less, and are satisfied with less because we are afraid to ask for or expect more.”
And from his book, Crazy Love: “We try to set our lives up so that everything will be fine even if God doesn’t come through. But true faith means holding nothing back.” Speaking of his own life, he says, “I’ve made it a commitment to consistently put myself in situations that scare me and require God to come through.”
Think about that for a moment. What are you doing today that will result in failure unless God steps in? And here’s a question that is haunting. On page 174 of Crazy Love he asks, “And even more importantly, how will you answer the King when He says, ‘What did you do with what I gave you?'”
Here are some people I believed lived with reckless abandon to God, trusting in His power and not limiting their actions based on what they believed they could accomplish:
During the age of rationalism and revivalism, John Wesley traveled over 200,000 miles on horseback AND preached 42,000 sermons, wrote 200 books, organized his followers, organized a Methodist society and built a chapel. (Christianity Through the Centuries pg. 383.)
Charles Spurgeon gave enough sermons and wrote enough material to fill 200 large books. And what about the works of CS Lewis, Martin Luther, Tyndale and Wycliffe?
Were these men super Christians? Did they have more of God? God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He created the universe. Honestly, He doesn’t need us and if He chose, He could raise up a stone and make it the world’s greatest orator. For some mysterious reason He has chosen to work through man–not super humans, but ordinary men and women who trust in an extraordinary God to do mighty things through us.
I believe the question is not can we accomplish A or B but will we allow God to accomplish A or B through us.
Remember the wall of Jericho we talked about? It never would have collapsed if the Israelites remained in their camp. God called them to take the city. Could they do it? Absolutley not…in their own strength. But could God do it through them? Piece of cake.
What would our world look like if people started taking God at His word and surrendered their lives completely to Him?