doctrines

“The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns’ (Jeremiah 4:3). You’ll never have the crop you ought to until you put the plow in, until the old clods are broken. Even the Lord Jesus Christ took the bread at the last supper and said: ‘This is My body which is broken for you.’ People throw broken things away. God uses broken things for His glory” (Adrian Rogers).

I’m thankful God uses broken things instead of throwing them away. God can turn broken circumstances for good for His glory. Best of all, God can use broken people to accomplish His purposes. In fact, He gravitates toward those kinds of people instead of those who have their act together (or at least act like they do).

If you pay attention to the characters in the Bible, you begin to realize that just about every one of them were hot messes. Every single one screwed up at least once or had a character flaw. That’s why the hero to look for in any given bible story isn’t David or Moses or Noah. It’s always God.

Face it. We’re all broken to one degree or another. None of us come close to being perfect. In fact, most of us are doing good to remember our own names some days. But the beautiful part is that God not only works in us in our weaknesses, but He intentionally works THROUGH our weaknesses. They’re the places where God’s strength is made perfect. Just ask Paul.

Remember when the world looks for the best looking or the most talented or the most ambitious, God is looking for the most available. He’s looking for the ones who have messed up multiple times but still show up with expectation, saying, “Here I am, God. Use me today.”

Those are the ones God chooses. Those are the ones God uses.

“How many people have you made homesick for God?” (Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed)

That’s the key to evangelism, I think. It’s not constantly reminding people how sinful they are or ridiculing their worldview. I think in that approach we forget that we too were once sinful and had wrong beliefs about the universe.

What was it that won you over? What was it that made you want to know and love God? Was it really someone telling you what an awful person you were? Was it someone constantly berating your beliefs?

I think the key is to make people long for God to the point where they’re homesick for God. I think people seeing you loving God and living out of the overflow of God’s love for you will want to know God. People who see you loving others well the way God loved you well will crave that kind of love, even if they don’t have a name for it.

The way the early Church drew people was in how those believers loved each other. They loved lost people as well, but mainly it was in their love for each other that made people want to hear their gospel message.

If all you have is a well-defined set of doctrines and beliefs, no one cares. If all you have is a passion for making people as moral as you are, then no one wants to hear about it. But when you live transformed and let the life of Christ in you permeate everything you do, then people can’t help but see and be drawn to what they don’t have.

The key is to make people homesick for a home they’ve never known but want to go to more than anything or anywhere else. Make them homesick for God.

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God Uses Broken Things

Homesick for God?