Called and Qualified

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. Revelation 21:5-6 (KJV)

In the corporate world, mangers and business owners work tirelessly to find the right people for the job. Hiring a well qualified applicant takes research and a lot of energy and money is expended to insure that the best person for the job is hired. Anyone who has been involved with operating a business and hiring employees knows that this can make or break a company. So it is natural to expect the same thing in the Church. Wouldn’t God want the brightest, best educated, most polished people to do His work? Shouldn’t the worship leader be the best singer in the church? Shouldn’t the preacher be the most eloquent speaker available? Needless to say God’s church is not a business. God is not a man and His ways are not our ways.

Even a cursory look at the great men and women of the Bible reveals that God turns this notion upside down. Abraham, David, and Peter were not from the privileged homes or the best schools. They didn’t have the keenest minds and certainly did not have a lot of experience but God choose them. He called them to be His servants. Why? Why does God choose the foolish things of this world? Why does He reach down to the base things, the ones that are discarded and abandoned?

Consider this verse written by the Prophet Ezekiel,

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them”. Ezekiel 36:26-27 (KJV)

Only God can make a statement like that. We hear a lot about heart today. But with man we either find someone that has “a lot of heart” or they don’t. We can’t change a person’s heart. We can’t give them the “want to”. When the corporate manger looks for an employee to fill the job they must find someone that has shown themselves to be successful or have the necessary skills and attitude to be successful. It is beyond our ability to change the heart of man.

Not so with God. When we cry out to Him, God will hear our cry and move as no one else can in our lives. He takes out the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. The heart of stone cannot be permeated by the Spirit of God. It is like hardened clay that thinks nothing of sin and rejects the Word of God. The heart of flesh is as tender as the spring rain and melts like butter in the warm rays of God’s presence. Man can never change his own heart. No manner of work or training can take the stony ground of the sinful heart and make it useful to God. But I have seen the hardened hearts of drug dealers, alcoholics, and even business men be transplanted before my eyes. I have watched the adulteress heart hardened by lust and desire walk down the aisle of a church and melt in my arms. I have felt the presence of God as a giant of a man wept bitterly during the operation that God was conducting upon his heart. I have seen the hand of God remove the stony heart and give a heart of flesh in its place.

For years the Spirit of God had rained down upon the hardened clay of the stony heart but when God does what only God can do and that heart is replaced with a tender heart the Spirit begins to permeate the ground of the new believer and New Life begins. Sermons suddenly take on new meaning. Songs make us want to sing out in praise. There is a spring in our step and a light on our countenance as the Spirit of the Living God takes up residence in our lives. The struggle is over as we welcome The Lord of Glory into every corner of our existence.

New Life! Man cannot manufacture it. We cannot teach it or train it. It comes from God and flows through the vessel of His making. When we surrender our lives to Jesus and respond to His call – He makes the difference!

There is a song by the Collingsworth Family that states, “Jesus, is all I need. Jesus, is all I need, I need no other friend, I need no other one, Jesus, is all I need.”

He is the God of new beginnings not because we have so much to offer but because Jesus is truly all we need.