Purpose

Counted Worthy

Most of us like to think that we are people upon which others can depend. Even when we fail to meet our obligations, we are more likely to justify our behavior with excuses and explanations than we are to acknowledge the fact that we may not be as trustworthy as we like to think. We’re worthy of other people’s trust, we think, and they can count on us in good times and bad.

In the Scripture, we find that the disciples rejoiced in another type of faithfulness. Acts 5 tells us that they were glad “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” of Christ (Acts 5:41). In another words, they thought it was a privilege that God considered them worthy of contending with persecution, because they knew that as they suffered well, that they would be representing Jesus. Just like our Savior was a “Man of Sorrows” who was afflicted and condemned by this world, so the disciples were honored when they suffered the same way.

It’s a different paradigm than most of us are naturally inclined towards. We want to avoid suffering, and when we are faced with pain, we are more likely to ask “Why?” than we are to celebrate. Yet the disciples teach us by their response that those who suffer for God’s sake should be honored; it is a testament to their faithfulness and their love for Christ if they suffer well.

We would do well to recognize that all suffering isn’t persecution (we may also experience pain as the consequence to our sin, and some pain happens because of the fallen nature of our world). The distinguishing characteristic of persecution is whether we are suffering because of and for Christ. When we do experience such pain, we, like the disciples, should rejoice that we are counted worthy to represent Christ well even in difficult and unjust circumstances.

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Purpose

Usable

Even in the era where there are TV shows about hoarding and people’s propensity to keep things that do not appear to add value to their lives, we still are a generation of discarders. According to this article, the average American generates four pounds of trash per day, equating to 200 million tons of trash per year. That is a lot of stuff! The reasons behind our trash largesse are probably many, but perhaps the greatest reason is that we’ve ceased to find a useful purpose for that thing that we are throwing away. We tend to be a nation of pragmatists and consumers – and if something no longer does the thing we want, in the way that we want it do, we simply discard it and purchase something else.

It’s a mentality that sometimes infiltrates our interactions with people. We sum people up by their ability to be useful to us or to a project that we are trying to accomplished. We look at their talents, their attitudes and their character and determine whether or not they can be part of what we were doing.

The challenge, of course, is that Christ is in the business of changing people, of strengthening people, and in bestowing wisdom where previously there may have been a lack. After all, who would have thought a shepherd boy could defeat a giant? Or that the child of the king’s former mistress would be besought with unparalleled wisdom? God often does the unexpected, at least according to our standards, and uses people that we would have written off. After all, this is the God who said that the first would be last, and the last first  (Matthew 20:16) – an idea completely absurd to our ideas of winners and losers.

Perhaps there is no more unexpected example of how God uses the “unusable” than Paul. Here was a man who persecuted and despised Christians, yet he arguably became the world’s greatest evangelist. Not only did he become a witness for Christ, but he did so to the most ostracized and unlikely group of people (at least from a Jewish religious leader’s point of view) – the Gentiles.  He was such an unexpected candidate to be used of God that when Ananias was told to go to him after his conversion, he questioned whether God really knew His man. However, as Acts 9:15-16 tells us the Lord dispelled the concern with these words,

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (emphasis mine).

Even as Saul, as he was then known, was persecuting Christ’s followers, it was ordained that he would be the one who would be an ambassador of Christ’s message. Even as he was intent on bringing about death, God was intent that he would be used to bring the Gospel of eternal life.

It’s a great reminder to us that God’s standards of usability are often different than our own. As the prophet was reminded about the shepherd boy, man looks at the outside, but the Lord looks at the heart. So when we think someone can’t be used by God, we may want to reconsider that position, especially if that “someone” is us.

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