Daily Devotional For Sunday, April 28, 2024

Well, today is the Lord’s Day as we say — Sunday. I pray you worship Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Every single person has something they battle and at times whatever it is, it has you. You find yourself in the vice grip of it. It seems as powerful as being in the jaws of a crocodile and there is no escape. Some times this is a person who has us or an addiction or a bad habit or a medical condition. Whatever it is will determine your freedom as well as your limitations. If you make material possessions your priority, you will discover that these will limit your earthly significance because these things will not go with you after you die. If you make it a person, then you re limited by the constraints and limitations of that person.

If you make it your career or profession, you will discover in the end that having a title or position cannot free you to be the person God wants. And if you died at your job, you would be replaced soon and that is the truth. Though you would be missed, you are replaceable. If it is money, then you are limited by the amount. When is enough  . . . enough?

If you choose Jesus as your priority, then not even the sky is the limit. Scripture is full of stories were God’s people chose God and whoever or whatever tried to limit them, God removed that limitation. When the Hebrews were in Egypt, God freed them. When they were before an impassable Red Sea, God parted it and drowned the entire Egyptian army. When Goliath insulted God’s people and God’s army, God used David to remove him. When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, God shut the mouths of the lions and tamed their claws. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, God limited the fire so that it would not burn them.

Yes, I know what some of you may be thinking. God does not always intervene. When and why He does and does not, I do not have any satisfactory explanation. All the disciples were martyred for their faith. For the first 400 years of the church, Roman slaughtered Christians. When Jim Elliott, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and Roger Youderian reached out to the Auca Indians, yes they were speared to death. My point is — sometimes what we view as a limitation or tragedy is not in comparison to eternity. The more Rome slaughtered Christians, the more the Gospel spread and the church grew. After the deaths of the missionaries to the Auca Indians, Jim Elliot’s wife, Elisabeth took their daughter and accompanied Rachel Saint (Nate’s sister) into that village and led the tribal chief and leaders to faith in Christ. 

This is the point of God in Isaiah 55:11, “It is the same with My Word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it” (NLT). There are no limitations on the Gospel. It will not come back void. When you make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, God’s blessings become available to you and they are limitless. Whatever amount of time, energy and resources you invest in God’s kingdom will reap benefits that you could never imagine. 

And no matter what your limitations are, God can and will use us if we make ourselves available even with our own personal limitations. Years ago, I read a book by Tony Campolo who tells the story of a boy known as “spastic Billy.’ You can read it below:

Tony Campolo tells of how he was a counselor at a junior high camp. He said he had never met meaner kids in his life. They focused on an unfortunate kid named Billy who had cerebral palsy. His brain was unable to exercise proper control over his body or speech. The kids called him "spastic." Billy would walk across the grounds of the camp in his disjointed manner, and the others would line up behind him, imitating his every movement. One day Billy asked one of the boys, "Which way is the craft shop?" The other boy twisted grotesquely, pointed a dozen different ways and said, "That way!" How could he be so cruel?

The meanness reached its lowest point when Billy's cabin had been assigned the morning devotions for those 150 kids. The boys voted for Billy to be the speaker. They knew he couldn't do it. They just wanted to get him up there so that they could mock him and laugh. Little Billy got up out of his seat and limped his way to the platform. You could hear the titters of mocking laughter. 

But that didn't stop the little guy. He took his place behind the rostrum and started to speak. It took him almost ten tortured minutes to say, "Je-sus loves meee! Je-Je-Je-sus loves meee! And I love Je-Je-Jesus." When he finished there was dead silence. I looked, and there were boys trembling and crying all over the place. A revival broke out in that camp and kids turned their lives over to Jesus. A host of boys committed their lives to Christian service.

Campolo wishes he had kept count of how many ministers he has met as he travels across the US who have told him how they gave their lives to Jesus because of the witness of a "spastic" kid named Billy. “If God could use him with all of his limitations, what makes you think that God can't use you to touch the lives other people? If God can transform the lives of people through the likes of little Billy, don't you dare tell me He can't do great things through you” (Source: Tony Campolo, You Can Make A Difference, p. 40).

So, a junior high boy with cerebral palsy with all the limitations he had, God used this boy to lead a camp of his peers to Christ. Guess what? Then God can and will use you if you make yourself available. It just shows that we should not ever make it about yourselves nor attempt to feel God is limited with us. In the end, we walk to hear from God these words of Jesus in Matthew 25:23, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (ESV).

Questions to Consider

1. What excuses do you give to God as to why He cannot use you?
2. “Spastic Billy” gave God his limitation of cerebral palsy, and a revival broke out among those junior high age boys. What does that tell you about how God can use you?
3. What questions do you have for Jesus Christ as to how and why He uses some people even in midst of tragedy?
4. I hope you will allow Jesus to be Master over every area of your life because investments in His Kingdom will never fail. Imagine the joy you will feel when He says to you, “Come and share My happiness!” How do you think that would feel for you to hear that and why?
5. What limitations do you have that create doubts in you to be used by God?

Scripture To Meditate On: Mark 12:43-44, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. (44) For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I know I am a sinner and there is nothing good in me. I know if I will make myself available to You and not make my availability about me, rather than only about You, revival can break out. Goliaths fall. Red Seas part, fiery furnaces do not burn and people come to Jesus Christ. I am so sorry that can be king or queen of excuses. I know that you are not looking for perfection, but potential and possibility. I surrender to You and make myself available to You to be used by You for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! — Pastor Kelly