A Nugget from New Life Network
(partially from Bob Gass Ministries)
Scripture for the Day (March 11, 2016)
And He said unto me, “My grace is sufficent for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
Why does God call people who don’t necessarily feel qualified? So we’ll depend on Him more than we depend on ourselves! When God called Moses, he asked, “Who am I, that I should go?” When God called Gideon, he replied, “I am the least in my family” (Jdg 6:15 NIV). When God called Solomon, he said, “I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties” (1Ki 3:7 NIV). When God called Jeremiah, he replied, “I do not know how to speak” (Jer 1:6 NIV). Yet they all became great leaders. How did they do it? By saying yes to God’s call, learning from their mistakes and growing wiser, and drawing strength from God each day.
So whether your God-given assignment in life seems large or small, you can grow into it. A vocal teacher once told Mary Martin, the famous American singer, that she had an inferior voice and would never make it in the field of music. But she determined otherwise, and for over half a century she reigned as one of the country’s most loved and popular singers. Mary overcame her seeming deficiency through determination and self-discipline.
The Greek statesman Demosthenes had such a speech impediment as a boy that he was embarrassed to speak before a group. But he invested long hours by the sea in unrelenting practice to overcome his problem—and as a result, became one of the most famous orators of all time.
You may not have a natural aptitude for leadership, but under God’s guidance you can develop into a leader. Why? Because even though you may be limited, the God who lives within you isn’t! We encourage you today to do it afraid and the God of this universe will be with you every step!
The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written, I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots. So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation. While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.” Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” (1 Cor. 1:18-31, The Message Bible)
