Twelve Ways to Be Useful to God
Introduction
A water-bearer in India had two large pots, both hung on the ends of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot always arrived half full.
The poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water-bearer one day by the stream:
‘I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologise to you. I have been able to deliver only half of my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts.’
The bearer said to the pot, ‘Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.’
Thankfully, God uses cracked pots! You do not need to be perfect for God to use you. We want our lives to count for something. If you want to be useful to God, here are twelve keys:
Psalm 57:7–11
7 My heart, O God, is steadfast,
my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make music.
8 Awake, my soul!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
9 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.
10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;
your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let your glory be over all the earth.
Commentary
1. Know that you are loved
God uses you because he loves you. David says, ‘For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies’ (v.10). This is where it all starts – knowing that you are loved by God.
2. Worship the Lord whatever
God is looking for worshippers. David says, ‘My heart is steadfast, O God... I will sing and make music... I will praise you, O Lord’ (vv.7–9). Respond to the experience of God’s love by worshiping him with every gift that you have – not just privately but also in public (v.9) – not just when you feel like it but ‘steadfastly’ – in difficult times as well.
3. Honour God in your life
God honours those who honour him. David writes, ‘Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth’ (v.11). This is David’s ultimate desire. It is the same desire that is expressed in the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, ‘hallowed be your name’ (Matthew 6:9).
Prayer
Lord, thank you for your great love for me that reaches to the heavens and for your faithfulness that reaches to the skies. I pray today that your name will be honoured through everything I do and say.
John 5:16–30
The Authority of the Son
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honour the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
Commentary
4. Do what ‘the Father’ is doing
The Pharisees, who were deeply religious, had become corrupted, legalistic and rigid. They criticised Jesus because a man paralysed for thirty-eight years had carried his bed on the Sabbath.
Jesus is in communion with God and is the beloved Son of God who does everything the Father wants him to do. He cannot be separated from his Father. He is one with the Father.
Jesus is God: ‘he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God’ (v.18). Yet Jesus is also the obedient Son of his Father. He said in response to those who wanted to kill him: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does’ (v.19).
Rather than initiating your own plans and asking God to bless them, try to see what God’s plans are and join in.
5. Listen to God
The people of God got themselves into trouble, as we see in today’s Old Testament passage, because they did not listen to God (Judges 6:10). Jesus says the key to life is to listen to him and believe: ‘I tell you the truth, those who hear my word and believe him who sent me have eternal life and will not be condemned; they have crossed over from death to life’ (John 5:24).
Even Jesus says, ‘I can’t do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide’ (v.30, MSG).
6. Do all the good you can
You cannot earn your salvation by ‘doing good’. However, the evidence of a life of faith is a life of doing good. Jesus himself, we are told, ‘went around doing good’ (Acts 10.38). Jesus says, ‘For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned’ (John 5:28–29).
As Barack Obama said, ‘Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.’
7. Seek to please God
I find this one of the hardest things to even begin to put into practice. It seems so natural to seek to please myself. Jesus said, ‘I seek not to please myself but him who sent me’ (v.30). To live a life seeking to please God involves a complete U-turn. It is not only a one-off U-turn but it is something that you have to try to put into practice every day. It is not easy!
Prayer
Father, help me to listen to your voice, to discern what you are doing and join in – not seeking to please myself but rather seeking to please you.
Judges 6:1–7:8a
Gideon
6 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior. ”
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. ”
16 The LORD answered, “I will be with you , and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favour in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.”
19 Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”
23 But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”
24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The LORD Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25 That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering. ”
27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!
29 They asked each other, “Who did this?”
When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
30 The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”
31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.”
33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
Gideon Defeats the Midianites
7 Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon ) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2 The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ 3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead. ’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
4 But the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”
5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
7 The LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.” 8 So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.
Commentary
8. Cry out to the Lord for help
The people of God were in trouble once again. They had done ‘evil in the eyes of the LORD’ (6:1). As a result they were oppressed (v.2) and ‘reduced to grinding poverty’ (v.6, MSG).
The turning point came for them, as it so often does for us, when they ‘cried out to the LORD for help’ (v.6). I am so thankful for the many times in my life when God has answered my cry for help. Whatever difficulties and challenges you are facing today, cry out to the LORD for help.
9. Know that God is with you
God raised up Gideon and said to him, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior’ (v.12). Gideon said to God, ‘But LORD... How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family’ (v.15). The LORD answered, ‘I will be with you’ (v.16).
Jesus, has promised that he will be with you always, until the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).
10. Know your weaknesses
Gideon is another example of God using cracked pots! Gideon said, ‘How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family’ (Judges 6:15). I often feel that God cannot use me because of my weaknesses. But sometimes God works through our weaknesses better than through our strengths.
Personally, I draw great comfort from the words of the apostle Paul: ‘Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me... For when I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).
11. Obey God fearlessly
Gideon ‘did as the LORD told him’ (Judges 6:27), even though he risked death (v.30). I find that I am often timid in the face of opposition. However, the opposition we face is nothing compared to what Gideon and, certainly, what Jesus faced. When fear knocks on the door of your life, let faith answer!
12. Be God-confident
The secret of Gideon’s power was that ‘the Spirit of the LORD came upon [him]’ (v.34). Don’t be self-confident; be God-confident.
God does not need large numbers. In fact he said to Gideon, ‘you have too many men’ (7:2). He does not want the people to think it was their own strength that saved them. He reduced the numbers from 32,000 to 300 (vv.1–7).
We do not need large numbers to see a nation transformed but we do need the power of the Holy Spirit. If you are confident in God, he can work through you as he did through Gideon.
Prayer
Lord, I need your Holy Spirit if I am going to fulfil the calling you have given me. Please send your Holy Spirit upon me today. Come, Holy Spirit.
Pippa adds
Judges 6
I can relate to Gideon. He was frightened, inadequate and uncertain. That makes him even more of a hero to me. It shows how brave he was to go against everyone (v.27). He was also sensible to check that he had got it right. If you are going to do something radical, you need to know that you have heard God right. Once Gideon was sure it was God’s will then there was no stopping him.
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References
The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel (commentary formerly known as Bible in One Year) ©Alpha International 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Compilation of daily Bible readings © Hodder & Stoughton Limited 1988. Published by Hodder & Stoughton Limited as the Bible in One Year.
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.
Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)
Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.