Time for another excerpt from the book,
“Today Is….A Gift From God.”

http://www.amazon.com/TODAY-IS-Gift-From-God/dp/1497365244

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December 18

TODAY IS…

a fine day to accept the appointment.

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that He considered me faithful, appointing me to His service.”  1Timothy 1:12 NIV

Given Paul’s background as an ardent persecutor of those who followed Christ, what an unusual selection by Christ for one to serve Him. Or so our human minds would think. It is important to constantly remind ourselves that God sees into places we cannot see and knows things about us that perhaps we don’t even know.

The story of Paul is a great one on many levels, but one of the most encouraging lessons to be learned from Paul is that God will use us, regardless of our past, if we will only let Him. Paul could have refused the appointment, but he did not. This can only show that his heart was good in places that he couldn’t see. It took God to bring out his best, but it took Paul to let Him and to follow His instructions for service.

One of the things that distinguished Paul from many others was his commitment to travel in spite of the hardships that travel in those days presented and spread the Good News about Christ to everyone he met. He recognized the importance of the instruction Christ had given to His disciples when He said, “So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields.” (Matthew 9:38 NLT).

God is trying to appoint all of us to become “Pauls’” as well. The question is how many of us will accept that appointment? If we have doubts, we need to examine the cause. Perhaps we have had “checkered” pasts. Maybe even darker than checkered. Jesus told His disciples that “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37 NASB). He was speaking about the abundance of people eager to be led to salvation and He was calling for prayer for those who would be willing to be appointed to be workers for Christ. If Paul, given his background, can accept the appointment of Christ then the person who should feel unworthy of service because of their past simply cannot exist.

If Paul can do it, so can you.

How we have lived our lives in the past is of no concern. How we are willing to live our lives in the future is all that is important. If Christ is calling you – if Christ is trying to appoint you – it is because He sees in you what may not yet be visible to you. It is not our place to second guess Him.

We must pray for courage to accept the appointment to serve Christ and not let our past hold us back from our future. And we must pray that others will accept the appointment as well, because “the harvest is plentiful.”

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