GOD'S WORK IS DONE THROUGH YOU AND ME

Do any of you consider the Books of Judges as your favorites?  I don't.  I dutifully read them and hope I find a kernel of truth to help me in my everyday life. As today was my first day of this year to read the Judges, I thought it desirable to read its introduction.  And that's where I found a truly helpful  gem in a group of words.  And here they are...."God, it turns out, does not require good people in order to do good work.  He can and does work with us in whatever moral and spiritual condition he finds us.  God, we are learning, does some of his best work using the most unlikely people.  If God found a way to significantly include these leaders (judges) in what we know is on its way to becoming a glorious conclusion, he can certainly use us along with our sometimes impossible friends and neighbors."

I like these words and thoughts.  God can do anything through and with anybody! (Got an amen?)

 I began reading Judges 1and 2, and saw that the generations after Moses slowly began to disintegrate into disorder and disobedience.  Judges 2:10 told me "another generation grew up that didn't know anything of God or the work he had done in Israel."  And the people began to serve the Baal gods and deserted God, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt.  They were helpless before their enemies because God's "anger was hot against Israel."

I've said this before in other blogs, I believe; the times we live in are not so different than the Old Testament days.  Yet, there are a few today who are believers of that same God who chose the Judges .  Now, these days, He has also shown us the Beauty of His Son, Jesus the Christ.  He showed us the One who suffered and died on the cross just as the Old Testament prophets said He would do. And those few who love Him are to use that love for Him to try and change the world full of disbelief into a world of people who believe.

Yep.  We of the impossible and the imperfect are to love the world just as Jesus did.  You see, Jesus through the Holy Spirit lives in us.  It is His perfection, not ours, that is to do this work. His perfection is to be seen in us...through the Holy Spirit's work in us.  My hands will do the touching, my feet will do the walking, and my mouth will do the talking.  But God will be doing the changing of hearts and minds.

I plan to just be there, being me.  Even trying to be the best me I can be won't make me good enough to change a heart full of old  pain and disbelief.  So, God will be there, too, guiding me, but mostly filling that other person with questions or feelings of some kind that turn  into interest, and perhaps, finally belief.  And perhaps, also, Christ will smile, and the Holy Spirit will sigh, and God will know all about this newest good news.

I hope this is God's  plan.  And I hope that here it is appropriate to repeat the earlier lesson from the Introduction to the Judges in The Message: "God does some of His best work using the most unlikely people."

Until the whole world knows and loves Him,

Jo