Just Ordinary People With An Extraordinary God
We are just simple people, ordinary men and women, who surrender our lives to an extraordinary God. Apart from God, we can do nothing.
If we look at Jesus' disciples and do a background check on their status, credentials, identity, and place in society, we have to say that they do not amount to anything. Many of them were fishermen, Levi was a tax collector, and Judas Iscariot was the only one among the first twelve disciples of Jesus who had any connection with prominent people.
These men had nothing special about them. When Jesus was handed over to Pilate and crucified on the cross, these men, who had been with Him for three years and saw the miracles that He performed and heard the truth that He preached, ran for the hills and hid.
John 20:19 mentions that "when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'"
So what happened to these frightened men that gave them the confidence to preach the gospel of Jesus to those around them without any fear that they might get killed because of their faith? What happened to them that they became bold to enter foreign lands and preach the gospel?
Well, before Jesus left them and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus made a promise to them in Acts 1:8 which says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
When Jesus' promise was fulfilled and the Holy Spirit filled each one of the believers, the Holy Spirit enabled them to do what they could not do on their own.
It is through the Holy Spirit's power that we are able to be bold and share the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the deep things of God (2 Corinthians 2:10) and He also reminds us of everything that Jesus had taught (John 14:26, 16:13).
When we commit our lives to Jesus and make Him our Lord and Savior, we will also receive the Holy Spirit as we ask Him to fill us. It is the Holy Spirit who will dwell in us and lead us toward the Father's will for our lives.
So when we become children of God and when we submit our lives to Him through our faith in Jesus Christ, we no longer live for ourselves but we live for Him who died for us and was raised again (2 Corinthians 5:15).
Our lives would be for the glory of God and in everything we do, we acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and that our competence is not of ourselves but comes from God (2 Corinthians 3:5).
We are the jars of clay - simple, plain, ordinary, fragile, and at times even broken and ugly, people. But we have a treasure in us and it comes from God. This treasure is the all-surpassing power of God made available to us by the Holy Spirit.
It is God who is working in our lives and touching other people's lives. When we share the gospel to different people, it is God who enables us to do this.
God changes our lives as well and He makes us a new person in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). As we grow spiritually and walk with God, we start to understand His ways and precepts by reading His Word and praying. He transforms us and renews us day by day.
By living out the salvation that He has freely given to us and by putting our faith into practice, we become more sensitive to God, to the Holy Spirit. He also helps us become more like Jesus Christ so that our lives would be pleasing to the Father.
This treasure in us comes from God so that He will be glorified in our lives. That is why He put it in jars of clay so that people would know that it is God who made all things possible for us. We live our lives for God so that through our living testimony, God will be glorified.
We live for an extraordinary God but not only that, our God is good, faithful, merciful, gracious, full of compassion, and He is the most loving God and Father we could ever have. He gives and provides for every need that we have and He blesses those who have faith in Him abundantly.
We can rely on God and His promises because we know that He will never leave us nor forsake us. We know that His Word, the Bible, is true and His ways are just. Living for God is the most wonderful decision we could ever make.
Furthermore, it is through Jesus Christ, God's Son, that we are able to be reconciled with the Father in heaven and live for Him. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, believe in His name and what He did for us on the cross, and make Him the Lord of our lives, then we start our new lives for God.
We start to imitate Jesus and share this new experience that we have with others. We tell them about God's goodness and faithfulness to us by giving us a way to be saved and have eternal life with Him. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us this:
"For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." Salvation is through faith and we cannot earn it because it is freely given by God.
Romans 10:9-10 says, "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
This is God's amazing grace for ordinary people like us. Before we commit our lives to Jesus Christ and live for God, we were sinful people, lost in darkness. But because God loves us so much, He sent Jesus His Son to die for our sins so that we can have a way to Him.
When we receive Jesus into our lives and make Him our Lord and Savior, we will have the best experience of a new and changed life. Then God will do extraordinary things and work mightily in and through our lives. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God will make amazing things happen.
For us ordinary people who live for an extraordinary God, our lives will be in God's hands and we know we can trust Him as He works together for the good of those who love Him. So we obey Him out of our love for Him and have faith in Him.
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