by Jilene Scherenske
What God wants to do with you:
God wants to use you! No matter what you think of yourself, no matter what background you may have come from, no matter what secret sins are in your past or in your life even now, God wants to use you for His glory….and He can if you will but accept His forgiveness like Matthew did. Matthew was deemed the worst of sinners in his day and yet Jesus forgave him and transformed him. He can do the same with you! Jesus’ undeserved yet wondrous grace is available to everyone! God’s love knows no bounds. He will absolutely transform your soul with perfect peace!
Sometimes we look at people and judge them and are biased toward them. What would we think if a known mafia man walked into our church? But Jesus looks upon all with love. That is the wonderful thing about our Lord. He looks upon us with so much love that He died for us! Let us be careful to look upon others with the eyes of Jesus, always viewing in them the potential they have for God’s glory, always being willing to allow Jesus’ love to flow through us to them. Let us be careful to not put people in some box and leave them there. Let us be encouraging and uplifting to everyone no matter who they are. Remember God’s transformation of Matthew!
We must learn the sin of greed from Matthew. We must be careful that we do not get trapped in the sin of wanting more than we have. It will destroy our life, take us away from our friends and family, take away our reputation, make us miserable at heart. Rather, we must ask Jesus to make us content with whatever He has given us. Beg Him to give us a heart of gratefulness. These two are the cure and the safe guards against the sin of the love of money – contentment and gratefulness.
We have a modern-day story of a tax collector who gave up everything to follow Jesus. Ira Sankey is his name. He was engaged honestly in the tax collecting business, working for the federal government with all of its perks. He became a Christian at age 16. Years later he met DL Moody at a convention in Indianapolis. Moody had been praying for 18 years for someone to travel with him as his music man and he immediately recognized Sankey as the man God had for him. But Sankey had a wife and three sons, parents and a great job that brought them a comfortable lifestyle. It took a while, but finally, Moody convinced him to leave the lucrative job behind and join forces with him to win souls. Their association lasted almost 30 years, from 1870-1899 and saw thousands of souls saved. He wrote the melodies for several hymns including Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne, Tell Me the Story of Jesus, The Ninety and Nine, The Lily of the Valley, The Cleansing Fountain, How Can I Keep from Singing? Hiding in Thee, Whosoever Will, A Shelter in the Time of Storm, Under His Wings, Faith is the Victory, and many others. Like Matthew, he simply forsook his job and followed Jesus.
What about you? Is God calling you to do something for Him? To leave your current lifestyle and follow His will for you? My friend, be not afraid. Jump into His will and you will experience peace and joy like you have never known before.
John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men (Thomas Nelson, 2002)
Leslie B. Flynn, The Twelve (Victor Books, 1988)