Tuesday: My Personal Potential
Image © Janet Hyun from GoodSalt.com
When our personal ministries leaders call for volunteers to be involved in witnessing and evangelism, we often think that many people are more qualified and gifted than we ourselves are. Others seem more confident and capable. However, the Bible reveals to us that God is not necessarily looking for those who are the most qualified as much as those who are willing to be used, whatever their gifts and talents.
A good example of this is God’s calling Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian slavery. Moses could see many reasons why someone else would be more qualified to do what God proposed (see Exod. 3:11, 4:10). In Moses’ mind, he had what he thought were good reasons not to do what the Lord asked of Him.
In response to a call to evangelistic action many modern day believers echo some of Moses’ concerns—“Who am I to be considered for such a task?” “What if they ask me some hard questions?” “I am not a good enough speaker.” We can smile at Moses for thinking that God needed to reconsider His personnel-recruitment strategy, but God knew Moses’ potential, and despite his personal fears and concerns, he was the right person for this special task.
The calling of Moses to lead God’s people is one that convinces us that God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves. God does not focus upon past performance but upon personal potential. Each believer has tremendous potential to contribute to the Lord’s work.
On the other hand, we must guard against overconfidently running before the Lord. While it is true that we should often search our own hearts to evaluate where we are at spiritually, we need also to understand that the human heart can be less than objective with self-evaluation. Therefore it is also good to ask God to examine us and show us our true condition, because our condition affects our potential.
Read Psalm 139. Why did David ask God to search His heart? What lessons are here for us, not just for witnessing but for our walk with the Lord, in general? What can we take away from this psalm for ourselves right now? What comfort, hope, and encouragement is there for you? At the same time, what does it say to you about the changes that you need to make in how you live?
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Thanks wonderful thought.God counts on my potentials.
This was a wonderful scripture to read and knowing that the Lord knows your ways, attempts, intentions, movements, and altogether the wholistic of you as a person better than you know yourself, the lord knows how sincere and contrite your heart is, this truly makes a person of the Lord stay steadfast in faith.
God does not want extremes. Being doubtful or overconfident about one's ability are not good signs of ministering but making one self available and be wholly dependent on God is what is required.
No matter what ever we think our weaknesses are, we should always realize that God made us so and if He who made us so is calling us to do a particular work for him then it's logical to think that He has plans of turning those weaknesses of ours into strengths and potentials for spreading the gospel. All we need is to make ourselves available for him and he'd greatly surprise us. For those of us struggling with weaknesses, consider Moses (a positive example) and the last servant in the parable of talents (a negative example). Very few people can bury something as small as a coin in the ground and still find it easily (when the master came back, the servant didn't even search for it. He just went and got it out of the ground) - he had a potential which the Master saw in him but which he ignored and for that he was severely punished. It's a lesson for us - our supposed weaknesses shouldn't stand in the way of evangelism.
Dear Nelson,
Please allow me to point out that it was no "coin" that was buried in the ground, in the parable. It was a talent (some 25 kilograms) of silver. God has entrusted each individual with tremendous potential for serving Him!
Every follower of Christ has a work to do in bringing the lost sheeps into the coral.
Thank you. The message inspires me. The Lord knows my potential more than I know.
What do I ashamed for?