What If God Wanted to Use You Right Where You Are?
Paul, Priscilla and Aquila were a tent makers. Luke was a doctor. Lydia was a business woman who dealt in expensive clothes, Dorcas was a homemaker whose abilities allowed her to make clothes for the poor, Peter, Andrew, James and John ran family fishing businesses, Cornelius was in the military and Zacchaeus worked in government. All were called by God and he used their gifts, talents and abilities to impact and influence people. You might call it a Ministry of Presence, God’s Presence in us wherever we live and work.
God is awakening in us a renewed realization that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are where He lives. Where we go, God goes! What an AWESOME thought and privilege!! He introduces Jesus at His birth as Emanuel, God With Us! Whether we are with our families, co-workers, friends or neighbors, God’s Presence through us can touch our world! This thought itself turns nominal Christianity upside down. Jesus in us is EXCITING and POWERFUL! Jesus said, “YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it give light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven.” (Matt. 5:13-16)
So where does your light shine? Eugene Peterson in the Message says this from Romans 12:1-2
“So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
The Holy Spirit helps us have that quick and seamless unity of believing and doing that is described in James 2. God has a calling on each of our lives that can literally change our region, every family, neighborhood, business, school, government- EVERYTHING!
You see God has a calling on all of our lives. Os Guiness in his book, “The Call” says this about God’s calling. It is way beyond the very limited view that God calls some people into full-time “ministry”. God is calling EVERYONE of us so “to Himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to His summons and service.” We are called to Someone (God) to do something which is secondary to Him. He will use our something as we focus on His Presence in our lives. He leverages everything for His glory when my eyes on are Jesus!
Michael and Cathy Banes are long-time believers who have responded to the Call of God in their own lives as a Fireman at Redding Mill Fire Department and Nurse Practitioner at Freeman Hospital. Every day they see how God has prepared good things for them to do through His Presence in their lives. Michael’s thoughts on this subject have been a great encouragement and help in expressing this Call of God.
These are thoughts a lot of us are having…and they are going to change the world! That is the business of God and He is very good. What’s your business?