Beloved: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am pleased to welcome you to another week of this year, year 2024. And my prayer is that God will rid your life of everything that has been making you unavailable for Him to use to bless others, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we see in the bible, God is always looking out for available instruments to use in establishing His good purpose in the lives of men. It may be His good purpose of healing them, saving them or prospering them that He wants to accomplish. But He is always in need of a man or woman or a boy or girl that is available for Him to use anytime He calls.
For instance, He said this to Ezekiel about the people of Israel: “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” (Ezek 22:30NIV) Look at that. Even though these people deserved to be judged by God for all their many sins, He was still not in a hurry to judge them. Instead, He patiently searched the whole land to see if there was someone that was praying to Him for them, so that He may spare them. Unfortunately, He found none. Therefore, He was left with no choice but to judge them.
In like manner, there are many that have been left to suffer or die because God is unable to find anyone to use to minister to them. Look at the way some of us pray all the time for God’s intervention in the leadership of this country. Do you think God is not listening to us? Or do you think He is uninterested in answering our prayers? He is listening to us and giving answers to our prayers. But the problem may just be that He has not found any available soul to use to bring us the kind of comfort and peace of mind that we want. So, we also have to be praying that there will be available souls for Him to use to save our nation.
But are we even available for Him to use in offering such prayers? Are we available for Him to use in doing anything at all? This goes beyond attending church meetings. We may be attending church meetings and still not be available for God to use in blessing anybody. As you probably know, it is possible for us to be physically present in a church meeting but also present somewhere else in our minds. Therefore, when things that will bless others, like praying for them, are being done in that meeting, our hearts are not involved. How, then, can God use us to bless anyone?
In his book of prophecy, Isaiah tells us of a time in which he found himself standing in the presence of God in a vision. And as he points out, even though he was there in His presence, God was still asking, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Why did God not just say, “Isaiah, I want to send you to my people to teach them my ways?” It was because He was not going to assume that Isaiah was available for Him to use, just because he was standing in His presence. Isaiah, therefore, had to indicate that he was available for Him to use before He could send him anywhere. (Cf. Isaiah 6:1-10)
In the same vein, just because we attend church meetings, God is not going to assume that we too are available for Him to use, if we will not show Him that we are available and that He can use us. Look at many of our churches today. Do you know that even the leaders of our churches may not assume that we are available to be given any task, if we will not indicate that we are available?
For instance, if you always disappear almost immediately a church meeting ends, are you showing yourself to be available to work for God in your church? No! Or if there is a job to be done by the church and, without taking permission, you do not show up to participate, will your leaders see you as available to join them in working for God? No! See, it is the one that a church leader is constantly seeing around him or that is constantly in touch with him that he will consider to be available for him to do God’s work with. The one that is always or often avoiding him will not be seen by him as a ready worker.
Now if we are not available to work with our church leaders or brethren in our church meetings, what is the guarantee that God will find us available to use in our workplaces, schools or neighbourhoods? There is none. Of course, that someone is available to God does not mean the person is fit to be used by Him. But even if we are the most qualified for any work He wants to do, as long as we are not available, we can only remain useless to Him. And where this is the case, He may have to go to a desert to look for a Moses to use or to a prison to bring out a Joseph to use or to a Babylon to look for another Nehemiah to use.
I pray that God will not be forced to find a replacement for us this year, in Jesus’ name. Amen. And one way to prevent that from happening is for us to begin to make ourselves fully available for Him to use.
Have a great week.
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