Characteristics of the Person God Uses (Part 3)
Yes, God uses people who are willing to follow Him, and more importantly he or she is a person who gives God the glory. To give God glory one must reckon himself dead. Dead, Pastor? Yes, dead to criticism and dead to praise. Sometimes you must even deliberately avoid the accolades of men to avoid pride overtaking your life. Since most do not see or recognize God at work, and only see men, the result is always that we spend our energy magnifying and praising men. And yes, men love it and the end result is power-destroying pride.
Most people fail to realize that God is looking at the condition of our heart. David was a man after God’s own heart, and even in failure he had a desire for holiness in his life. Holiness means to be set apart and to be separate. You all know that is a major undertaking in today’s world.
We cannot make ourselves holy. We can become holy only through the power of Christ and the working of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. It’s through a pure and clean life we reveal to our world the reality of a holy God.
Isaiah 35:8 states that God is building a highway of holiness that the wicked cannot travel. God desires that your life and mine be that highway, the road over which others may be drawn to Christ, the road over which God may bring revival to our land. I like to think of it as me becoming “pavement”! When I’m pavement, I do not have to have my name on all the road signs along the way.
All the prayers, sacrifice, and pleadings with God will not bring revival until we take seriously our holiness. And remember, the condition of your heart will always affect your actions and spoken words, and your actions and spoken words will reflect your heart. In the words of John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Now that is a real point to ponder.
~ Bro. Nichols
