The Least of These!

By Pastor Jeff

1Corinthians 15:9, “For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

The kingdom of God as many of us are aware of smacks right in the face of what this world searches for. This book is filled with paradoxes, for examples it tells us we must die to live, the last will be first, if we want to be the greatest we must become the least, faith of a mustard seed and the so on.

But nothing captures my imagination more than how God will take what the world would consider of none value and turn it around and make something awesome from it.

1 Corinthians 1:26-29, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.”

To me, I find great confidence in that, in our generation we have seen many that the world would want us to look up to fall flat on their face, many of us remember such people as Chad Johnson (football), MC Hammer, Gary Coleman, Mike Tyson to name a few. Some you may be surprised of hearing of are the likes of Buffalo Bill, Rembrandt, and of course we are seeing many celebrities in Hollywood that are in trouble and to our surprise we see politicians falling form grace!

We should not take any satisfaction in that but Gods word is true in what it tells us in James 4:6, “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” The writer of James doesn’t end there, 7-10, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

I like this saying I saw posted recently, “God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called!” God will use who and whatever He chooses, but it’s clear that those who will surrender to His will not out own, James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

So, do you know of anyone in the bible that you would not have considered as someone that God would use in an awesome way? Moses, Rahab, David, Jeremiah, and pretty much everyone that God used for His glory mentioned in the Bible.
What about Samson, there is a new movie coming out next year and of course the actor playing Samson is 6ft 2’’ inches tall and very muscular. I wonder if that’s what the real Samson that God chose was, could it of been a ordinary looking person like you or me?

Look at the disciples that Jesus hand-picked, what a bunch of losers according to the spiritual leaders of the day and even would have been thought of likewise in our churches today. What you had stinky fishermen, tax collectors, a thief, hmmm, what every church should be full of!
But because of Jesus Christ all these men except Judas Iscariot were transformed into men of God who stood up against hatred, discrimination, torture, and eventual death to bring the gospel to the whole world!

That brings us to Paul, someone who because of the powerful message of Jesus Christ became so transformed that they even had to call him by a different name…

God today is still taking less than ordinary men and women and using them to accomplish great things for His kingdom, like Nick Vujicic, we also have those that have used tragedy and God turned it for good, Joni Erikson Tada, even after death someone’s life can affect others, Rachel Scott (Columbine-wanted to be a missionary)

“For I am the least”, I hold to that, I need to know that, I can agree with Paul when he says, for truly God has taken the weak and made them strong, the poor He has made rich…

picture care of: images.knowing-jesus.com