God Uses The Unqualified

There are many reasons why God should never use us. But He does. Moses stuttered and was a murderer. Miriam was a gossip, and David had an affair. Solomon was filthy rich and was obsessed with women. Gideon and Thomas, we are doubters. Elijah was suicidal. The list could go on. God used them all. God qualifies the unqualified. It is not God who disqualifies. Then who is it?

• Self-disqualification. We live in a world that sees our worth in success. People tend to measure their self-esteem by their success. Success is something we dreamt about in our youth, and strive for in our adult years, if we haven’t achieved it, we often live in regret and bitterness. Society teaches us how to succeed, but not on how to handle failures. There is a self-imposed shame in not being as successful as we had envisioned. Failed marriages, kids going off the rails, business attempts that have crashed. Failure in society is often seen as an unforgivable sin, and our response to failure is self-disqualification.

We can look at Peter in the Bible, Did he fail? God is more concerned with who we are than what we do; what we become is more than what we achieve. If success makes us proud, self-sufficient, and uncaring, and failure makes us less selfish, less independent, and more sympathetic, which is better? Being the person God wants you to be is more of a true measure of success than achieving the goals you have set for yourself.

The Book of Peter is an account of how Jesus builds lives out of failure. We are Jesus’s success story.

• Disqualified by others. People often don’t see your worth. When we are told that we will always be at the end of the line. And we are no quite enough. No matter our disabilities, looks, or anything else all people have a purpose. God looks at the heart first. God doesn’t use champions, or superstars he chooses the unqualified.

God separates the ones He chooses from the world. He separates unto Himself. Another word for it is “sanctification.” He separates the unqualified from what is unholy and causes them to be devoted to God.