Beloved: grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I welcome you to another week of the month of October 2022. And I pray that God will cause you to multiply in usefulness to Him and to those in your world, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he says this to him about John Mark: “…Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” (2Tim 4:11NIV) But there was a time Paul did not want this same Mark to travel with him at all in carrying out his ministry duties. And that was because he had once deserted him and Barnabas when they seriously needed him. So, Paul considered him at the time useless to him in ministry matters. (Cf. Acts 13:13; Acts 15:36-41)
But Mark did not remain useless to God or to His servants for life. He grew up in spiritual things. At some point, he acknowledged whatever bad habits or attitudes he had that made him useless to the people of God in his life and dealt with them by the power of the Spirit of God. So, later on in Paul’s life, he insisted that Timothy look for him and bring him to him, because he was helpful to him in his ministry.
There is another young man mentioned in the bible who had a similar life story. He too was once useless to his master, even though his name meant useful. In fact, he was so useless and irresponsible that he ran away from his master. But when he met Paul, he became born again. Since then, his life took on a new direction and he began to live up to his name, ‘useful’. And he became so useful to Paul that he felt like keeping him to be with him for life. But because he wanted his master to see how God had changed his life, to freely forgive him for all the bad things he had done to him and to also enjoy his usefulness, he sent him back to him. And I am talking about none other than Onesimus, Philemon’s servant. (Philemon 1)
We can see, then, that God has the power to make useless people useful and irresponsible people responsible, if they will yield their lives to him. And He wants to make you too useful and responsible in all your relationships. But are you willing to be useful and responsible to Him and in all your relationships? Unless you are willing to be useful in an increasing manner, God cannot do much for you. It is only those who are willing that God will enable to do those things that are necessary for them to become useful to those in their lives and to continually increase in usefulness.
Well, like Paul, leaders of every church of God need useful people to support them in their ministry and to keep moving the work forward. They need those they can rely on to support them with their time, spiritual gifts, money, skills and anything they have. And are you one of those people? Are you useful to your church leaders in any way? If they are thinking of those to rely on to get certain things done, will your name come to their minds at all? If this is not the case, then, you are useless to them. And if you are useless to your leaders in church, you are most likely useless to the God who has appointed them over you.
Do you, then, want to remain useless to them or do you want to become useful? That is the question for you to answer as you face this new week. And this goes beyond asking them, “How can I be useful to you?” It is also about showing them what things you can do to become useful to them. I pray that God will lead you away from everything that is making you useless to Him and to those in your world, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a fruitful week.
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