God Chooses the Ordinary

There are many things about God that I love and many things about God that I am in awe of. I want to mention two today and yes, they are related.  



I have a gift that many would see as a curse. My gift is that I am ordinary. I didn’t say I am normal because I am constantly being told that I am not normal. But I am ordinary. I don’t have extraordinary talents or abilities. I am not famous. I don’t have great material wealth. I am not related to or connected with anyone who is famous or wealthy. I see being ordinary as a gift because all that God has done in and through me and all that God will do in and through me, He can do through anyone who will let Him.



One of the things about God that I love and am in awe of is that He chooses and uses the ordinary.



God used ordinary people like:

Moses

David

Peter

Timothy

Amos



God also chose and used a man named Gideon.



Judges 6:11-16

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”



God chooses Gideon to deliver Israel out of the opposition from the Midianites.



Gideon saw himself as

Weak

Unqualified

Insignificant

A Nothing



Gideon was basing that on who the world identified him as. Who the world told Gideon he was is not who God said he was.



God said that Gideon was:

Mighty

A Man of Valor

A Man that God Was With

Equipped By God



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing what God says about us, not what the world says about us.



Gideon was angry and disappointed with God because God was not doing what Gideon thought He should. God was waiting to use Gideon to deliver His people. Gideon saw himself as someone that God could not use. God saw Gideon as just the kind of person that He wanted to use.



The ability for God to use Gideon was centered in God, not Gideon. When Gideon believed what God said about him and about how God would use him then Gideon obeyed and God used him.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing who God is and who He says we are.



The second thing I love about God and am in awe of is the broken- heartedness of Jesus when He sees the hurt of people and the unbelief of people.



John 11:35

Jesus wept.



Jesus was weeping over the pain and grief of people that He loved. Jesus knew that He was going to raise Lazarus back to life, but He wept over the pain He saw in Martha and Mary.



Jesus identifies with His people’s pain and hurt. He does not dismiss it or see it as insignificant. He hurts with us.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Roof is knowing and experiencing God walking through everything in life with us.



Luke 19:41-42

And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”



As Jesus enters Jerusalem the last week of His earthly life. He looks at the city and weeps over the fact that they will reject Him. He weeps that the peace He could bring into their lives they will not receive. Jesus’ reaction to sin is not anger but broken-heartedness.



Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is feeling the broken-heartedness of Jesus when we see people rejecting Jesus.



God choosing ordinary people and being broken-hearted over people who reject him are related. When God chooses us to use for His awesome purposes and we say no, it breaks God’s heart. None of us is qualified in our own goodness or ability to be chosen by God to be saved or serve Him, but when God chooses us, it qualified us. When we say yes to God, it brings Him great joy.        



By God’s Choice Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                         Joe