As I read and study God’s Word, I see just how important it is for believers to see themselves the way God sees them. God created us to be his image-bearers. Even as believers, we strive toward perfection, but we are not perfected. We are works-in-progress and God continues to speak destiny into us. As our example, God spoke into the lives of imperfect people in the Bible. He saw them as who they would become rather than who they were at that time. He literally called into existence the destinies of Moses and Gideon in the Old Testament, just as Jesus foresaw Peter as a leader in his church in the New Testament. These men, as imperfect as they were, performed mighty deeds! As in the Bible, God commissions ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
In Exodus, God spoke to Moses. Moses had fled Egypt forty years earlier after killing a man who had mistreated an Israelite. As a baby, Moses had been rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter. This was after his life was threatened by Pharaoh in an attempt to kill all Israelite children under two. She found him when his mother had sought deliverance for Moses by having his sister place him in a basket in the Nile River. Even though he was raised in the king’s palace, his mom became his wet nurse. So, Moses was always aware of his Israelite heritage. He knew that he could not remain in Egypt after killing the Egyptian, so he fled to the land of Midian.
Moses had been in Midian for forty years when God apprehended him at the burning bush near Mount Horeb. By that time, Moses had married Zipporah, the daughter of the Midian priest, and had children. But more importantly, Moses had shed every vestige of the man he once was. He had become a humble shepherd. God caught his attention with the burning bush that was not consumed. After calling his name and telling him to take off his shoes, God presented Moses with his mission. God stated that he had seen the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt and instructed Moses to go Pharaoh on his behalf and bring the people of Israel out of slavery. Moses cried out, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? God told him that he would be with him and the sign that he was with him would be that they would worship on that mountain where Moses was (Mount Horeb) when he had brought the people out of bondage.
That encounter would change the trajectory of Moses’ life. At that time, the humble Moses did not see himself as worthy to perform this task, but God saw him as a mighty warrior that he would use to deliver his people from Egyptian slavery. God gave Moses what he needed to perform the signs, wonders and plagues that would be used in confronting Pharaoh. He also provided Moses with his brother, Aaron, as his communicator as Moses decried his own lack of speaking skills. We know the rest of the story. After a series of signs. Pharaoh finally freed the Israelites, only to pursue them after they left. That attempt was stymied by God at the Red Sea, as Moses declared:
Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you shall see again no more forever. (Exodus 14;13)
At the burning bush, God had seen Moses as that mighty leader that he would use to part the Red Sea, freeing the Israelites from slavery.
And then there was Gideon in the time of Israel’s judges. Gideon was the son of Joash, the Abiezrite. God sent an angel to Gideon to land owned by his father in Ophrah. In appearing to Gideon, the angel called him a mighty warrior. (Judges 6:11) God sought out Gideon to saved the Israelites from the Midianites who had been terrorizing them for years.Like Moses, God saw Gideon as a mighty warrior, but Gideon did not see himself that way. So, Gideon asked for a sign that it was really God seeking him out. When Gideon brought an offering of a young goat and unleavened bread to God, as a sign, God caused fire from the angel‘s staff to burn up the offering.
God then begins to prepare Gideon for his mission. He tests Gideon’s courage by telling him to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build an altar to the Lord using the wood from the Asherah pole and burn a seven year old bull from his father’s herd as a burnt offering.
As the Midianites and Amalekites joined to war against Israel, Gideon, buttressed by the Holy Spirit, summoned his people to prepare for war. Gideon, then, asked God for another sign to confirm that he would deliver Israel from their enemies. So, Gideon placed woolen fleece on the threshing floor and asked God to put dew on the fleece and leave the ground dry. God did that. He asked for another sign—this time, he asked that God would make the fleece dry and cover the ground with dew. God did that, too.
As Gideon and his men prepared for war, God showed him that he–God–would fight the battle, not Gideon and his men. God then told Gideon that he had too many men, so, those who were trembling with fear were to return home. Twenty-two thousand men left, leaving ten thousand. The Lord then said that there were still too many men. God commands Gideon to take the men down to the water and those who lapped the water like a dog would be used. Only three hundred of the ten thousand men lapped the water like a dog. They were the ones God chose to attack Midian.
God used Gideon and his men to defeat the Midianites. At night, the Lord told Gideon to go to the enemy’s camp. He overheard a man telling a friend of his dream of Midian’s defeat by Gideon. Gideon told his men:
Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands. (Judges 7:15)
God had seen Gideon, as he cowered at his father’s threshing floor, as the mighty warrior he needed to liberate the Israelites from Midian.
In the New Testament, Jesus spoke into Simon, one of his disciples; he called him Peter (which means rock, petros). Petros is a small stone or pebble. Petra means Rock or Stone. Here is what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18:
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (Petra) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus is saying Simon, I see you as a stone, Petros, a pillar from which that I, Petra, the big Rock, will use to build my church. Jesus spoke into the life of this ordinary fisherman, noted for his impetuousness and irrationality. Jesus knew that Peter would scold him when he told the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer, be killed and rise on the third day. By the way, Jesus rebukes Peter for allowing Satan to use him by saying:
Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. (Matthew 16:23)
Jesus knew that when he was arrested, Peter would deny him three times!
After all of those things, Jesus saw in Peter the one who he would become foundational in building his church and shake up the world as it was known at that time!
What a lesson for us believers–that God sees us as earth shakers who can turn the world upside down! You see, we are image-bearers of the most high God. We are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Our God loves us immeasurably. Grab hold of this grace, my friends! I know I am going to do just that!
Be blessed.
Scripture References:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
Lamentations 3:22 The faithful love of the word never ends! His mercies never cease.
Romans 8:38-39 And I am concerned that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow–not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below–indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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