The People Of God And The God Of The PeopleSample

Ordinary people for an extraordinary work

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13 ESV)

They were uneducated, common, ordinary men. They were everyday fishermen. When Jesus Christ came to our planet, He did not choose the wealthy, the powerful, the scholarly, or the famous for His closest disciples. He chose ordinary men.

All through the Bible, this is God’s way, isn’t it? God uses ordinary men and women who recognize their inadequacy and thus their desperate need to depend upon Christ. You can be too big for God to use, but you can never be too small. But here’s the key: they had been with Jesus, and that made all the difference. They were transformed forever.

Think about the people God used in the Bible. In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren said: “Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric, Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered, Martha worried, the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid.” That is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each of them in His service. He will use you too if you stop making excuses. 

Brother Yun, in The Heavenly Man, told his wife Deling: “We are absolutely nothing. We have nothing to be proud about. We have no abilities and nothing to offer God. The fact that He chooses to use us is only due to His grace. It has nothing to do with us. If God should choose to raise up others for His purpose and never to use us again we would have nothing to complain about.”

God is looking for ordinary people who have been with Jesus. Are you one of those people? Will you be one of these ordinary people?