https://www.biblegateway.com/devotionals/standing-strong-through-the-storm/
WE DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO DO GOD’S WILL
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that t
his all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
Our Open Doors colleague, Ron Boyd-MacMillan,
shares the following insight from his teaching,
“Why I Need to Encounter the Persecuted Church.”
While living in Hong Kong, I used to
make a point of having dinner with many of the
Open Doors supporters worldwide that gave up
some holidaytime to courier Bibles into China.
Often in the course of their travels some of them
would meet famous house church leaders
and say, “To be truthful, I was a bit disappointed
in meeting.” They would add something like,
“I thought these people would be remarkable
saints, and of course they were, but they were
also quite prejudiced, or rude, or had some other
feature that I did not think worthy of a very
spiritual leader.” They assumed that the
persecuted were “super-saints.” But they are not.
It is a very unfortunate trend to idolize the
persecuted. We assume that if a Christian
survives twenty years in a stinking prison cell they
are in a completely different spiritual category
from ourselves. They are of course different in
what they have experienced, but that does not
necessarily make them more spiritual.
As J.C. Ryle once put it, “Even the best of men
are only men at the best. ” They often retain the
blind spots and prejudices of their culture.
On one occasion I was taking a distinguished
Bible teacher to meet a revival leader in
Lanzhou, Gansu province. This Chinese leader
had seen over 50,000 people come to know the
Lord through his ministry over a ten-year period,
but to our amazement he taught that
“you can only come to faith on a Sunday.” He had
been taught Christianity by his beloved
grandmother, who believed the Lord would only
listen to pleas for repentance on a Sunday.
We talked and argued about this, and eventually
he threw us out shouting, “You just hate my
Granny.” I hear now, years later, that he
has extended the “repentance period” to
Saturday as well. Yet he is still an extremely
effective evangelist despite this chronic,
man-made obstacle he has erected to the
grace of God!
Surely the great point is this: flawed as some
Chinese leaders were, they did the will of God
mightily. They labored in a country
that has seen the number of Christians grow
from less than one million in 1949 to over
eighty millions today—the largest revival in
the history of Christendom. God didn’t stop
pouring out his Spirit because his saints were
imperfect.
If the persecuted teach us anything, it is that
God will work through us even despite our
prejudices, blind spots and eccentricities.
If we offer ourselves, we will be used…as we are.
We do not have to be perfect to do God’s will.
Otherwise, no one could.
RESPONSE: Today I will walk in faith thankful
that I do not have to be perfect to do God’s will.
PRAYER: Thank You, Lord, that You can
still use me with all my imperfections and
blind spots.
Standing Strong Through The Storm (SSTS),
a daily devotional message by
SSTS author Paul Estabrooks.
© 2011 Open Doors International.
Used by permission.
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