Word for the day by Christian Education Forum
People
of God: Ambassadors of Christ
Teena Philip
St. Johns MTC, NY
12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him
and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.”
As we
spend some time in meditation on the Word of God and focus on the topic and
title of this devotion it seems very simple. We are the people of God and
therefore Ambassadors of Christ. However if we keep repeating this phrase a few
times (as I did), it’s apparent that walking with Christ is not a task for just
one person. The tasks cannot be done by just one individual. It’s a collective
effort of each and every Christian, their faith, their abilities and
specifically their inabilities which work in harmony that completes the tasks
of being an ambassador of Christ.
When we
read Judges 6 from the beginning we realize that the Israelites are being
oppressed by the Midianites because of all their evil deeds. And the Israelites
are crying to God to save them. This is when an angel comes down to remind them
everything that the Lord has done for them and yet they continue to do evil
things. As the passage continues Gideon who seems to be the weakest in his
family and from the weakest tribe of Manasseh is called to save the
Israelites.
There
two things here that we as the Ambassadors of Christ today, do not do enough of
and do the most of:
1.We do not trust the Lord enough to
believe that He will be with us through our journey.
2.We do the most to make sure God, the
one who created us, understands that we are incapable of the task He is
assigning.
As
People of God, how can we not believe that He will always provide and He will
constantly be with us? All throughout the Bible His promise to all His
Ambassadors is that He will be there for us. Sometimes we forget that it also
means He will send us resources, a team, an advisory group so that we
collectively can complete the mission. Many of us take the burden of the cross
on ourselves and think it needs to be done alone and I think we forget He has
called all of us as Christians to work for Him in harmony and in unison, as
“People of God”.
What we continuously
do is remind God that we are incapable of doing the task God is calling us to
accomplish. We sell ourselves short and more importantly we sell the knowledge
that God has about us short. He created us and knows our story before we were
even born. How then can we say God, "How will I free the Israelites from
Egypt" or in Gideon’s case from the Midianites, I’m the weakest. God
choose people not for their merit. He uses our weakness to only make sure
stronger and mighty warriors and Ambassadors of Christ. He unites us through
our many flaws and shortcomings to make a solid team to defeat evil.
PRAYER
Dear Lord our
heavenly Father, help us to remember that You have promised us Your presence
and Your army for what You have called us to do. Help us to take up this
calling and be Your true Ambassadors. In Your Holy Name we ask all of
this, Amen.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
“God does not call
the qualified, He qualifies the called.” – James Snyder