THE MAN GOD USES by Ray Stedman

In discussing our subject the term, man, is used in a generic sense which includes women as well. Man or woman, there is no respect of persons with God. God delights to use anyone, boy or girl, man or woman, who makes himself available to him. I suspect that if we investigated we would find in most hearts here a basic hunger to be used of God. If you have been a Christian for any length of time you have experienced something of this and you know the joy of it, the glory of it, the sheer excitement of it. There is nothing quite like the sense of having been a channel of divine activity, of having been used to do God's work.

I suspect that there is a hunger in your heart to be used of God not merely occasionally, but consistently. And to be used, not despite yourself, as sometimes happens (for the Scripture tells us that God even uses the devil, so if you are resting upon that you are in pretty poor company), but to be used with full acquiescence and acceptance of God's program for you. Doubtless you desire to be used to heal, to make right, to restore, to break down middle walls of participation, to unite that which is shattered and fragmented, to deliver from oppressions, from bondage and enslavement, to enlighten and open eyes, to illuminate reality, to dispel mists, illusions and visions, and to empower, enrich, fulfill, and intensify. All these are descriptions of the work God is here to do, and what he will use you to do if you are available to him. It is exactly what God proposes to do with each one of us. and thus to be used is what gives meaning and purpose to life.

Without this, the best we can do results in a sense of deadness. meaninglessness and pointlessness. We might give a most impressive display of energy, vitality, and activity, but when we get to the end we shall have to ask ourselves, What's been the point of it all? In the day of the judgment of the believer before God he may say to us, "What you did was interesting, and active, but you missed the point." Thus I suspect that with many of us there is a very deep desire to be used of God. I confess, for my own part, that I will be quite content if it could be written on my tombstone what I once saw on another's, "He was used of God."

Spiritual maturity, becoming grown up as a Christian, is nothing more nor less than to be made ready for consistent use by the Spirit of God. When you have reached that place it will be marked by certain signs, which are unconsciously revealed to us by the apostle Paul in a well-known passage from the first chapter of Romans:

"I want you to know, brethren, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish: so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."

It should be quite apparent that the apostle is not drawing a deliberate self-portrait. He does not intend to talk about himself or what kind of a man he is; he is simply breathing out to these Roman Christians, many of whom he has never met, a long standing desire on his part to come to the capital of the Empire to visit them and to have a ministry among them. But in the process of doing this he unconsciously reveals the qualities of the man or woman that God uses. This we will look at together...Read the article