Failures for Glory

Transcript

Greetings in Jesus’ name. Welcome to this amazing new day, this beautiful new morning. I pray that the more we walk with God, the more clarity we will get about His ways, manners, and strategies. We cannot be Christians that are completely unaware and ignorant of the ways of God.

Sometimes the Lord, as good and generous, kind and merciful that He is; will use something really ugly, something really bad, something that’s really not beneficial from a human viewpoint for His glory. God is not bothered about staying within the boundaries and the limitations that human understanding and theology have placed Him in.
It is hard for us to understand, how can God use something that is negative, that is not beneficial for His glory but the truth that we understand from the scripture is that God can use both – the good and bad, evil and beneficial things for His glory.

Let’s read Acts 13:12: Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. We see in the scripture that Apostle Paul and Barnabas were sent to minister for the Lord on the island of Paphos and they were ministering to the proconsul, and as they were trying to administer the word of God to him, there was another guy by the name Elymas who was a sorcerer and he tried to do black magic and enchantments to distract the proconsul from hearing the word of God. This is when Apostle Paul uses the divine authority that he has to strike him blind.

Usually, what Apostle Paul would do along with the preaching of the gospel is to heal the sick and not to make people blind. He would try to cast out demons instead of making someone blind, he was used by the Lord to bring people into light and not send them into darkness, and yet in this context, the bible says he struck that black magician with blindness.
But the fruit of this situation is very beautiful, it says, ‘Then the proconsul believed, because he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.’

So here is something that is negative, looked down upon, which is not very God-like and is harming a particular person for a specific season, and yet God used that for His glory. God used that to bring one more person to experience salvation. So, it is possible that He can use our failures, hurts, and problems today. He can use our lack and things that we do not have perfectly aligned in our lives today for His glory.

Is it possible that sometimes, the preaching of the gospel may not be about healing the sick and raising the dead, but sometimes it may also be about burying some people and putting some people to death? It may also be about making certain people go blind, making certain people inactive in certain spiritual atmospheres.

Apostle Paul didn’t have any personal problems/ issues with him, and yet this guy was standing against the assignment that Apostle Paul had on the island of Paphos, he was now fighting what God had asked Paul to do, and hence, Paul become aggressive to demonstrate the anointing and authority that God had placed upon his life.

Please understand that not every solution to every problem may look beneficial or great on the outside, but it can surely be used for the glory of God. In this case, there was a man who had to be saved, there was a man who had to receive the gospel and was going to be used by God to spread the word of God on the island of Paphos, even after Apostle Paul and Barnabas would leave that island and that assignment required a divine surgical strike on the camp of the enemy. In this case, it required somebody to be blinded. Sometimes it may require someone’s failure, mess, or brokenness for the Lord to use that for His glory.

So, will you yield to Him? We are all happy when God would use us to heal somebody, but will you yield to Him today and allow Him to use you for something that people will not like or people will not enjoy seeing, or people not being benefitted from you? Sometimes you may be the one on display, your failure or hurt or struggles can become the channel for mercy and the grace of God to go to someone else.

All the Apostles, all the amazing men, and women of the old; their death, persecution, torture, and separation from the family, all of it served as a testimony to the people of the world that Jesus is Lord, He is the real God. If we will yield to God, if we say, ‘ God have your way, do your will, we are here under your leadership, however, you want to lead us. We don’t want to place you in a box, be our Lord and our Master so that we can serve you 100%.

Prayer: Father God, we thank you for your grace and mercy this morning. We yield ourselves into our hands and we pray that you would use us however it would please you; however, you will like. We know that we are instruments and vessels in your hands, in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen!