Monday, March 25, 2013

Messed up Christians

 
 

This week I have been wrestling with a few things about myself. Constantly, I continually see my flaws and shortcomings. My biggest issue right now is just being lazy. In Romans 12:11 it states “Do not be slothful (it means extremely lazy…. Like a sloth lol) in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” (ESV). This is the essence of my life, I constantly want to do things for God and serve him, but I am to dang Lazy… anyway, I have a point to this. God likes to use people like me that have problems or have major screw ups. So if you a person that keeps messing up in life; God has a plan for you.
Take Jacob, the Son of Isaac who is the Grandson of Abraham. Jacob’s name is actual Israel and he became the father of the Israelites (hence the name). However, do you know who this man actually was? All this favor that was upon him in life he stole. Literally, he stole the favor of God. See, Jacob had a brother named Esau who was technically the first born. The first born in those days would receive all the inheritance and birthrights, so if there was any blessings, Esau was meant to get it; however, Jacob was a deceitful fellow and stole all that inheritance with the help of his Mom. Thus, this sly fellow became the founder of the Israelite people by stealing all of the inheritance from his brother. Now I won’t get into the whole story for it is long and you can just read the Bible for it, but essentially after the theft his brother wanted to kill him. I mean he was full of rage and his bro was one of those muscular hairy guys that like to go hunting with his bare hands. So Jacob ran (I don’t blame him lol)….
The crazy thing is that even though Jacob stole all of this, God began to do an amazing work in him. God took a man who was technically not supposed to be the one with his entire father’s inheritance, and transformed him into a man of God. This is shown in Genesis 33 when Jacob runs into Esau after seven years of running. He walked up to him, gave him gifts and repented. I mean this dude was preaching to Esau (they had a very emotional reunion). Anyway, this Jacob ended up being the father of the Israelite people, which if you don’t know the story, is how we essentially get Jesus lol.
See God takes people like me, you, Paul (he was a killer), Peter (he was a liar and abandoned Jesus in his time of need), and many other messed up individuals and uses them for his purpose and glory. He transforms us from the inside out and all we have to do is seek him first. So if you have been discouraged about your usefulness, take heart knowing that God has got you. He is going to take you and use you in such a way that is it is going to blow your mind. All you have to do is seek him first. As Christians we say that phrase a lot, but it is completely true. There is no way that you are going to find your true worth, confidence, acceptance, (fiil in the blank) to the extent that you desire in anything else but him. So yea… this is my spiel and I know not many people read it, but I just had to share all this with my peeps… peace out people…
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 2 Chronicles 16:9