QUALIFICATION FOR SERVICE

By Bodé Adeboyejo

“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” 1 Corinthians 1:26 

When God gives us an assignment or calls us to service, the first things we think about are the things we don’t have to carry out the assignment. Our inadequate education (even if we have a PhD), inexperience, social status, financial status, ethnic or racial background, age, influence, etc.  Like Jeremiah, we say, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth." Jeremiah 1:6

By the time we are done reeling off our inadequacies, we’ve fully convinced ourselves that we cannot do what God called us to do. Thus we disqualify ourselves from carrying out the assignment, even before giving it a shot.  We rationalize by saying, “There’s no way God can be asking me to do what He wants me to do.”  “He, of all people, should know better, and be intimately acquainted with my inadequacies.  No!  Definitely not me,” we ponder. 

What we fail to realize, however, is that telling God our inadequacies, is like preaching to the choir, for He already knows our inadequacies, and that our inadequacies are the very things that attracted Him to us!  With God, our inadequacies are our qualifications! That is, what qualify us for an assignment are our inadequacies not our abilities or accomplishments.  If our abilities or accomplishments are what qualify us, we will rely on them rather than on God.  And the excellence of the assignment will be credited to our human abilities and strengths rather than God’s.  

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 

So when God gives you an assignment, rather than see your inadequacies as excuses or shortcomings, see them as qualifications for the assignment! “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him…” 2 Chronicles 16:9