So the other day, I got a message on Facebook that said,
"Jon, I love the message of your videos but not if it's coming from you.
There are choices you've made in your past that render you not qualified to spread such
a message."
And for me, that was hard to hear because the hypocritical Christian is something
I fear.
To be put in a category like that, I could think of nothing worse.
So maybe there's something I should've said first.
You see, I can't and won't and don't claim to be perfect.
In fact, most times I'm not even good.
I'll take responsibility for the mistakes I've made
and the hurts I've caused.
I got more than I probably should.
But would God use that against me, making good coming from my life impossible?
Forgives me, but refuses to use me?
I don't believe in that Gospel.
I believe in the God of Moses.
Moses was an orphan and a murderer with a stutter and a price on his head.
Yet God chose this killer to be a fulfiller, performing miracles, leading his people,
and making rivers flow red.
I believe in the God of David.
David, the shepherd boy who turned into a king,
a terrible father and an adulterer from the start.
Yet even with wrongdoings and iniquity, we remember him as the man after God's own
heart.
Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, living a life without direction.
Matthew was a tax collector, the lowest of the low,
yet they both walked and talked and witnessed Christ's perfection.
Did God choose the Pharisees, the self-righteous and pompous full of laws
and pretention?
Or did He choose cowardly Peter and persecuting Paul
to spread the message of Christ's redemption?
All these heroes in the Bible, not a one of them was likely.
Leaning not on themselves, they leaned on God,
and you know what God is?
He is mighty.
So can God use me?
A broken, steaming mess.
And can God use him, or her, or you?
I'm here to tell you right now that the answer is yes.
God can and will use anybody even if you only go to church on Christmas.
Does He only speak through the preacher?
No!
God is in a different business, because believing in the Lord
isn't living a perfect Walgreens life, always doing right.
It's letting His light shine from within and letting His Word be your tutor.
He'll take your broken past, helping you step into a more hopeful future,
because it wasn't for perfection that Jesus died on that cross.
It was for the unhealthy, so the sick could serve the sick
and seek and save the lost.
'Cause in the end these words and these lights and these cameras
and this video, it's not about me.
It's about God.
And with God, it's never about who you were, but about who you will be.
It's God's story for the world, and we're just playing our parts.
So if you're out there feeling not qualified, that's great,
because "not qualified" is where He starts.