Various Articles
"The LORD looked at him and said, ‘Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?’ He said to Him, ‘O LORD, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house.’ But the LORD said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man’" Judges 6:14-16.
The priority is not ability, but availability. Credentials are unimportant to the God who chooses and enables
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"And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food and broke the loaves and He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish. There were five thousand men who ate the loaves" Mark 6:41-44.
The message from the miracle is that little is much when it's in the Master's hands. Limited resources are no hindrance to the multiplier of the loaves and fishes.
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"And He took him outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness" Genesis 15:5-6.
We must never underestimate the power of simple faith. Few things are as audacious as asking a childless old man to believe he will have descendants too numerous to count. Outrageous as the promises seemed, elderly Abram dared to believe what Yahweh said.
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Well, here is the biggest rescue scene ever! Mark 13:24-27, “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
Can you picture it? The utter despair and hopelessness that the world will experience?
Well, thankfully there’s more. “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
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"I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth" 1 Timothy 3:14-15.
The six chapters of 1 Timothy are chocked full of important information about how we ought to live as members of the church, the household of God.
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“Goodness Gracious!” “Jiminy!” “Good Golly!” And, occasionally, “Uffda”. Laugh if you want, but these are actually phrases that come out of my mouth when surprised or startled. I have many issues and sins that I struggle with in my life (just ask my family), but bad language isn’t one of them. Why not? …
Prayer tops the list of priorities from the perspective of the elderly apostle Paul. He appeals to us to pray with a specific purpose. His appeal for all-inclusive prayer includes praying for government leaders. Notice the intent of those prayers: that we be kept free to lead tranquil and quiet lives…
"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit" John 3:8.
Although it cannot be seen, it is real. The Spirit realm is as real as the invisible wind. The reality of the wind is evidenced in its effects - rustling leaves, dust, and the sound of its moving….
My dad had polio. Polio is an illness caused by a virus. It can sometimes lead to paralysis. Polio reached pandemic levels throughout the world in the first half of the 20th century.
My dad was diagnosed as a teenager in the early 1940’s, and he spent weeks and weeks in St Anthony Hospital in Rockford, IL. I don’t know much more about that challenging time in his life, because he did not talk about it to my brother and me…
When I was a young pastor’s wife in my 20’s and 30’s, I had many older role models in our congregations. These special saints had been faithful through the years despite the challenges and sorrows of our present world. They trusted God’s direction and His goodness, and they were still devotedly serving Him at church and in their everyday lives.
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In Mark 1 Jesus calls his first disciples. He calls four people. Now these four are all fisherman with jobs and lives. But they leave those lives and jobs to follow Jesus. Take a second to really think about how much they’re giving up there. They’re losing their job, their lifestyle and leaving their own homes. All to follow someone after he says just one thing to them. Now it doesn’t say that they stopped ,thought about it, and followed Jesus, but that “At once they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18 NIV) and “Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and follow him” (Mark 1:20 NIV). They left immediately to follow Jesus; they were willing to give up their own lives which they had plans for. They gave that all up to follow Jesus. They did it quickly and without hesitation. Now they could have had insight like in Matthew 16:17, “Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven’”. I would think that they did but we can still learn from their example here.
Another thing to notice here is that Jesus is not calling scribes or priests who might know the old testament the best and who are the most well educated. There is plenty of reasons for this. He is calling fishermen as his first. The first time something is done it’s setting a precedent. Everything Jesus did set a precedent for us to follow. But he’s showing us here that you don’t need to be the most educated, or the smartest to follow and serve him. That is the precedent he is setting for us. The precedent that continues even to this day. And he took these fishermen and made them into the vessels he would use to spread the gospel even after he was gone, when they were no longer fishermen, but fishers of men.
Now we can apply this to our own lives as well. We’ve all been called to follow Jesus just as the first disciples were. Yet so many times we hesitate, because we don’t want to give up things, or we’re too scared. Take a page from these disciples, they left their lives and their homes to follow. We should be willing to do what is asked of us as well. Most of the time what we are called to give up isn’t even as much as they gave up. Not only that, but when we are called to do something, we should be doing it right away. They didn’t have the full picture of who he was and were willing to follow, we should be able to as well. Let me qualify all that by saying we should give thought and prayer if we’re going to do something, and if we are called to do something that doesn’t mean you have to give up everything you know like the disciples, they were after all in a different situation than most of us.
And if you’re stuck thinking that “I’m not qualified” or “Someone else better can do it because I’m not good enough” you should forget those thoughts. Because Jesus set the precedent that we all, no matter how skilled or unskilled, can serve. Just like the disciples he equips us for what we are called to do. You don’t need to be the best to serve. Moses who is famous for leading the Israelites out of Egypt was a flawed person. And if you’re saying “I’m not ready yet because I’m too young, not good enough, etc yet” then when do you become ready. Setting a random age where you say that you know enough now? We are called to serve, not called to serve in 20 years.
Don’t be afraid to serve in what way you are called and do it without delay when you are called.
©Philip Kirkpatrick, 2023
