God Is Not Through With You Yet - Part VI
December 2018 |
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”
Joel 2:28
God is not through with believers who fail and repent, and men and women who think they are too old or too young to be used of God. This month, I want to discuss how God is trying to tell young women just like Rebekah, Esther, and Mary that He is not through with them and to not let anyone despise their youth (I Tim. 4:12).
Abraham sent his servant to go find a bride for his son Isaac from among his family members in Haran rather than from among the Canaanites where they were living. He was looking for a young woman who was willing to leave her family and commit her entire life to someone she had never seen. The servant traveled hundreds of miles and prayed all the way that God would lead him to a young lady who would not only give him a drink of water, but would also volunteer to give water to his 10 camels, which was not an easy task. When he got to Haran, he went to a well and asked the first girl for a drink of water. She not only gave him a drink, but she also drew water for his camels without him asking. He gave her an earring worth about $300 and two bracelets worth about $6,000 and asked her to take him to her father. When he told him why he had come, her father gave consent and Rebekah agreed to leave everything to become the wife of Isaac. As a result, she had Jacob and Esau as sons and she became part of the linage of the Jewish nation and of Jesus Christ.
Esther was born when the Jews were in the Babylonian captivity. Her parents died when she was young and she was raised by her cousin, Mordecai. When the king of Persia rejected his queen, he had young women from all over his kingdom brought to him so he could have a new queen. This took a long period of time, but Esther was chosen to be the new queen. Haman, who was a member of the king’s court, got angry at Esther’s cousin because he refused to bow down to Haman since Mordecai was a Jew. As a result, Haman tricked the king into making a decree that all Jews should be killed. Mordecai found out about it and told Esther that she needed to intervene or they would be killed with all of the other Jews. To do that, Esther had to risk her life to see the king since he had not summoned her. As a result, God used Esther to save all of the Jews and, therefore, preserved the lineage of Jesus Christ.
God sent the angel Gabriel to a peasant girl named Mary in Nazareth to tell her that she was going to become pregnant with the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. Even though it could mean she would be stoned to death for the perception of being immoral before she was married, and that she could also lose Joseph to whom she was espoused, she agreed. She was also confused as to how this could happen since she was a virgin. But God used her to carry and bear the Son of God who was Jesus Christ who became the Savior of the world.
So, regardless of age or gender, God has a plan and purpose for all believers, and that includes being used of Him to influence souls to accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord and to live a victorious Christian life. At one point God said, “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none” (Ezek. 22:30). He is calling all believers and waiting for their responses today.
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