Qualified!

“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own.
Our qualification comes from God.”  2 Corinthians 3:5 NLT

It took my breath away when I finally understood that God only uses broken and wounded people!  All my life I had been told that someone had to be perfect and to act perfectly to be loved, valued and to belong.  But here was God turning the worldly standard I had been taught upside down.  Suddenly everyone, even I, was qualified to be used, to become a part of something bigger and of eternal value.  No one was to be discounted.

In fact, I saw that God takes our weaknesses, and as we are able to trust him, he transforms our weaknesses into our strengths.  We see that when he took a lying, conniving Jacob, and turned his stubbornness into faith, so he would be a carrier of God’s promise for future generations.  He took an impulsive Peter and turned his fervor away from self-interest into a spirit of self-sacrifice that would transform him into the leader his ragtag disciples would need to inspire them in spreading of the Gospel to the unbelieving world.  And, perhaps more importantly, notice how he transformed the meekness of a little Jewish girl named Mary into the humility, the quiet strength, needed to trust God that she would become the mother of his precious Son Jesus, who would one day become King of kings and Lord of lords.

Are you feeling too broken to be used by God?  Actually, you are in the perfect position to allow God’s “miracle glue”, his powerful compassion, to heal, restore and give you a vision for the greater things he has planned for you from eternity.  Believe this: you are valuable, you are loved and, as a believer in Jesus, you belong to a loving Father who created you to live in his presence, forever overflowing with his joy and peace. 

Surrender to Jesus that weakness he has been showing you, and allow him to transform it into a beautiful strength.  You are not broken.  In Christ you are complete, qualified, to become all that God destined you to be.

Pray with me: Holy Spirit, multiply my faith to believe that I can be powerfully used by God.  Take my weaknesses, my brokenness and faults, and fill those empty places with more of you.  Fill me today with your love, peace, patience, joy, kindness, faithfulness, and self-discipline.  Lord Jesus, I surrender all that I am to you, for you have promised to make all things beautiful in your time. Even me, Lord! Praise God! Amen.

Dear friend, be blessed as you feel yourself getting stronger, more beautiful and more peaceful as you surrender to Jesus.  Be blessed as you trust him to cause you to overflow with new life in him.   Amen.
Mary Sumner
December 3, 2019