Elevation Point Church

When it comes to being used by God or having a purpose, we expect it to go perfectly. God is perfect; so if we’re following Him, we think our lives will be perfect. Then, once things go differently than we thought they would, we begin to doubt God’s ability to use us. Once we fail, make a mistake, end up in a different direction than we thought — we view our purpose as over. However, God never said that our lives had to flow smoothly to be used by Him (just look at Moses, David, Abraham, JESUS). He will still use us, as long as we don’t get stuck and frustrated when things don’t go according to plan. God has a plan; but by the time it’s all said and done, it won’t look perfect.

Rahab was not living what most would call a “morally-pure” life when the Israelite spies met her. In fact, many would claim that disqualified her from being used by God. However, she was the one God used to protect the Israelite spies and help them escape Jericho. Her history didn’t disqualify her as most would think; but rather, it prepared her. You may think that what you’ve done has disqualified you or counted you out from being used by God; but if you’ll flip the perspective, you’ll often find that it prepared you.

The enemy of our lives knows that we are weakest when we’re on our own. Because of this, he tries to keep us from community — to keep us from going through life together. He’ll use betrayal, unforgiveness, jealousy, and whatever else he has to in order to keep us separated from others. However, God’s desire is for us to go through life together. Although it’s tempting to go through life alone, our strength comes from going through it together.

When we hear the stories of David and Saul, we often forget that they weren’t always enemies. David was first a psalmist for Saul. Saul loved David. Saul’s son was David’s best friend. However, comparison, insecurity, and jealousy led to Saul creating an enemy out of David. We, too, must be careful not to do the same thing in our relationships. Many times, we self sabotage our own relationships out of comparison, insecurity, and jealously. We allow relationships to be broken apart by made up enemies.

Love is a word that we through around without much thought. We say we love people, things, and even ideas. But that word carries less and less weight the more than we fail to put actions behind it. Jesus never instructed us to SAY we love one another, He just told us TO love one another. In other words, the love we profess doesn’t matter at all, if it’s not lived out and shown through our actions. It’s not telling people you love them that matters most — it’s showing them.

Jesus instructed us to love all, even those who hate us. While that’s not easily done, and it may not make sense to our minds naturally, we were still instructed to do it. Jesus didn’t just tell us to do this, but He also displayed it throughout His life — most notably when He was willing to die for the sins of those who hated Him. Jesus showed us that love is not based on a feeling, it’s based on understanding. The enemy may try to lead us to hate others who hurt us; but as followers of Jesus, our love is stronger than that.

In I Kings 18:21, Elijah is pleading with the Israelites to make up their minds and choose who they were going to follow. One day it’s the Lord, the next day it’s Baal. It all depended on who/what they thought could provide for them, help them, or make them happy in the moment. The truth is that if Elijah were alive today, he would ask a lot of us the same question. Maybe not about Baal and God, but about our significant other and God, our preferences and God, or our money and God. How long will you waver? How long will you trust in both your God and your idols?

God says, through Isaiah, “Forget the former things – you can’t go back.” That’s the bad news. But the good news is, He can still make a way! God said, “I can do a NEW thing THROUGH the bad thing, I can make a way through the wilderness.” This is why your whole story is so important. We like to edit our story. We prefer to tell the happy parts, the parts that we’re proud of, and things we wouldn’t change. However, it’s the moments that we didn’t know what to do that are the most important. The parts that we try to hide under a rug (because we’re ashamed of them, or regret them) are just as important to what God is doing. Just because you can’t start over, it doesn’t mean you can’t start now. Life moves forward — we can’t go backwards. The awesome thing about God is that he’s already ahead of us, and He knows how the story ends. We just need to reset our focus and our hearts on things ahead as we trust Him every step of the way.

Have you ever made a decision that didn’t quite pan out the way you expected based on how it looked? In Genesis 13, Lot chose to go to the land that he thought looked the best in the moment. It was well watered, it was beautiful, it was most desirable. However, it turned out that it wasn’t what it looked like. And the land he chose, that he was so excited about — was later destroyed. That’s kind of how life goes sometimes: You see an opportunity, you get excited about it; but then, it doesn’t turn out how you expected. And our first instinct is often to blame God, or to feel like we’re being punished. When in fact, we chose to settle.

While David was praising God in II Samuel 6:14-17, his wife, Michal, was watching him. She didn’t participate, and she wasn’t happy about it — but she watched. David could have allowed her displeasure to dictate his praise, but he chose to worship anyways. This is always the goal, but it’s not always easily done. The greater temptation and inclination is to allow those who are watching to turn us from worshippers to watchers. And because of this, many of us have been watching what God is doing, rather than participating. But this year, it’s time to stop watching and start worshipping.