Can God Really Use Me? Acts 11:24

Original Picture By: SilhouetteFxBXzit.svg: Xzit derivative work: Ricardo P. (SilhouetteFxBXzit.svg) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I've found that the doubt that often creeps into the minds of followers of God is not typically the doubt that we think of. Yes, every Christian will have questions that they must wrestle with about the supposed "evidence" of the Big Bang versus the evidence of the Genesis account. Yes, every Christian will struggle with how to know whether the Bible is the reliable Word of God or just another book. Yes, every Christian will need to question and reaffirm their reasons for believing that Jesus really was...and is who He said He is- the Son of God.

But, for most of us, I've come to believe those doubts only surface from time to time. I believe there is actually a bigger doubt that is almost always our constant companion. The doubt that I am speaking of really has nothing to do with the power of God- at least not at first glance. But it has everything to do with doubting the the power of God working through us.

We feel inadequate for the task God has given us. We feel incapable of accomplishing the Great Commission. We feel unprepared to teach the souls in front of us. We feel...small. And while we recognize the bigness of God, we just can't help fearing the smallness of us. And the enemy paralyzes us with that fear so that if he cannot have our souls, he can at least keep the souls that we might have reached if only we had faith.

But as Paul would say later, "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline" (2 Tim. 4:7). Therefore, I'd like you to consider Barnabas because what Luke recorded about him in Acts 11 sums up all that is necessary for us to be used by God in very big ways.

1. Barnabas was a good man. I want to be careful how we look at this fact because in my work with teens, I have found that we have somehow paralyzed our young Christian brothers and sisters with the idea that they must first be good in order to be saved. That is imply not what the Bible teaches. We are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8). But the fact that are have been saved, then puts us into a position where we can then become good! How many people have been content to be forgiven of their sins without pursuing the reality that God promises of being freed from our sins!? Barnabas was fit for God's work, not because he deserved it based on his goodness, but because he pursued goodness as one of the fruits of the Spirit that had been given him as a pledge! And that fact leads us straight to the second thing Luke tells us about him.
2. Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit. On the surface, we might balk at the idea of our having responsibility in the Spirit filling our lives. After all, baptized believers are promised the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). If the Spirit is a gift, then is there anything that we are supposed to do? Wouldn't that defeat the whole idea of a gift being something that is simply given? But then Paul said in Eph. 5:18, "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,..." (Emph mine). Paul's command to not get drunk on wine which leads to dissipation, or wastefulness, could also easily be applied to the many other things we get "drunk" on- think sex, pleasure, entertainment, accumulation of things or of power, etc. A life that is focused on those things is also dissipation; it is wasteful! Instead, we are to be "filled with the Spirit!" Perhaps part of our role in being filled with the Spirit as Barnabas was is that we are very conscious not to live wastefully and not to fill our lives with all of these other things that leave no room for the Spirit to take up residence in us and fill us up! How can we be full of the Spirit when we are already filled to the max with sports, or TV, or social media, or other unrepented of sins that we are not willing to let go of? In fact, those "pet sins" that we think nothing of might be another thing to look at in our quest to be filled with the Spirit. Are we not blocking access to the Holy Spirit in our lives when we live in such a way that we are grieving Him? Look at the walks that are contrasted in Ephesians 4:17-32. If we are "walking as the gentiles walk," then we are grieving the Holy Spirit of God! No wonder we feel inadequate to the tasks God has placed before us!
3. Barnabas was full of faith. And this where the rubber meets the road, and really it is back where we began. I have no doubt that Barnabas' faith in God included the faith that God could use even him. I wonder if Jesus' rebuke of Peter's lack of faith- when Peter began to walk on the water and subsequently began to drown- was more about Peter's doubt that he could walk on water by the power of God than that Jesus could walk on water. After all, Peter could still see visual proof that Jesus could do it. It was his fear of his own safety that caused him to sink. But though we say that we have faith in God, if we limit His power and ability to work in the world to only working through others who don't have our flaws and weaknesses, then we don't doubt ourselves after all. We doubt God.

May we be a people that are good. Not so we can be saved or so we can keep our salvation. But may we be good because we are saved. May we be a people that are full of the Holy Spirit because we have made room for the Holy Spirit to fill us. May we be a people that are full of faith in God...including faith in God in us.

And may a great many more people be brought to the Lord in our day as they were in Barnabas'.