I think I was in Junior High School when I first heard someone share these words of a shoe salesman, Dwight L. Moody: “The world has yet to see what God can do through a man totally yielded to Him. By God’s grace I will be that man.” I thought, very consciously, that if God could use Dwight L. Moody in amazing ways, he could probably use me.
This is where the journey began. This decision did not improve my grades, or change who I was. Through my high school and college years I desperately wanted to be elected to some office – it never happened.
When I made the decision that I wanted to be God’s man, I knew little of what “God’s man” meant, or about how to become one – other than to read the Bible. (I still have the Bible) And so almost every night before I turned out my light I would read one chapter in my Bible, and work at doing what the passage said. Many times the passage said nothing to me! Other times the implications of the passage for my life were very clear…and often I would clearly miss God’s standard. I was no saint, but this pattern proved to be enough to get me started in becoming “God’s man”.
If we seek to be God’s man, to live In Partnership With God, we will live in a counter culture. God’s people must swim against the current of society – until we get to heaven. Fact. Matthew 7:13 puts it this way: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”.
As we seek to live In Partnership With God, we must always remember that we will continue to sin – to make wrong choices – and we will often feel very frustrated about our own failures. At such times we must not forget that Jesus Christ died on cross that these sins could be forgiven. What is critical is that we repent/turn from our sin and ask for the offered forgiveness. We then begin again, with a clean slate, to work at living out our decision to be God’s man.
Many times at Deerfoot during the After Breakfast Bible Study I would ask two big, strong staff to come stand next to me. I designated one as God…the other as the Devil. Each took one arm – the challenge was to pull me in their direction. The direction I would go was my choice. If I pulled toward “God”…the “Devil” had no chance. If I pulled toward the “Devil”, I could move in that direction.
“I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.”
And what is your decision?