Growing up in church, I learned there were standards for being used by God. Most of the standards involved character. We learned, both directly and indirectly, the standards involved being holy or righteous, skilled, willing, among a few others. These are the three that stick out most, though.
Theologically speaking, none of us are holy, but I think what they meant was you went to church a lot and didn’t use tobacco or cuss. As for being skilled, I think it mostly meant you were a good communicator. Being used by God, at the time, meant mostly doing church work. And then, of course, you had to be willing. If you were willing, it was said, God would use you.
As for what God was doing in the world through the church, I deduced two main priorities: 1. Grow the church and 2. Make God look good. The church was doing other things, but this seemed to be the primary focus.
I have since learned the objectives of the church are different than the objectives of God. And I’ve also learned the people God can use are different than the people the church can use. If you glance at scripture for just a second, you’d get the sense that God uses perverts and criminals. If you glance at the church (at least the modern, megachurch) you get the sense God uses preachers that were once in the band Rascall Flats but laid it all down to rock a Bible.
God’s Primary Objective in the World: To save many lives. I get this, of course, from nearly every major character in scripture from Joseph to Moses to Jonah to the Law itself to Christ and the Apostles and beyond. If God is doing anything in the world, he’s attempting to rescue people while still giving them the freedom to choose him or deny him.
Who God Uses: God uses anybody he wants. The only holy person God uses in scripture is Jesus, so he certainly uses people who are unholy. He also uses people who have little skill or talent. Moses comes to mind, who was a terrible leader at first. He could hardly speak and was unwilling to talk in front of Pharaoh because he was convinced God had chosen the wrong man. And as for being willing, Jonah was completely unwilling but God used him anyway. So you don’t have to be holy, skilled or willing to be used by God. Any teaching otherwise goes against scripture. Call me a fundamentalist.
It goes without saying he used all these people to save many lives.Can you think of a major character in scripture who wasn’t involved in a story about saving lives?
This is no argument against the church. The church absolutely needs to hold a different standard than God. God doesn’t have to vet his leaders like the church does. Can you imagine interviewing Moses for the job of lead pastor, listening to him stammer out a bunch of excuses in response to the inquiry about that pesky murder in his past, and then the elders making a gut decision to give him the job anyway? So I don’t have a problem with the church having a higher standard than God. But if we lead people to believe they cant be used by God to save lives even though they aren’t a fit for professional ministry, we are making a huge mistake, and it would be an interesting debate as to whether we are being guided by the Bible in our thinking. God can use anybody he wants. Anybody, anytime. He displays this over and over in the scriptures.
If you’re wondering whether God will use you, there’s no telling. Preachers say God wants to use us and list qualifications all the time but very little of that is Biblical. We like to turn narrative passages into laws or principals about God, but that’s exactly what Satan does with the scriptures. The truth is, God is a being with a mind of his own and he can do what he wants. We can’t control him, we can only influence him by telling him what we want and by making our requests known. The best analogy is to think of God as a father. A good father, that is. He works kinda like a person, and not kinda like a computer that you enter code in so it will spit out a response that correlates with your code.
I don’t know if God will use you. I can’t think of a reason he wouldn’t, but I’m not God and neither is your pastor so there’s no telling. I only know God is trying to save many lives and that he uses anybody he wants.
If you want to be used by God, the best thing you can do is tell him. So if you’ve felt unqualified to be used by God, you aren’t. You may be unqualified to be used by the church, but you aren’t unqualified to be used by God, because he can use anybody. He even used a donkey. And a serpent that turned into a rod. And a rock that spit water. He can use anybody he wants. Maybe he wants to use you.
Love this! God can, and does, use anybody and everybody. I find the list of screwups in Hebrews 11 so encouraging! This post is like that.
Reminds me of Tamar, Rahab (and Ruth, too) in the genealogy of Christ. Most sermons that mention these ladies brush past the scandals they invoked to paint them with a golden brush. The Scriptures, however, tell the truth. God chose to use them specifically while telling their real-life stories.
Oh thank God. I keep feeling like I’m ending up on the church’s reject pile because I might not fit the “professional ministry” mold in my own mega-church (sadly devoid of any former Rascal Flatts members). Then I keep chanting to myself, “The church is not the kingdom, the church is not the kingdom,” and reminding myself that God can move anywhere, anytime, and use me even if I am not clean-cut or together enough. I’ve also been uncomfortable at times with the unconscious conflation of church and kingdom; the things on the church’s priority list sometimes seem pretty self-serving in being related to the church’s own continuance and expansion.
Thank you for the great words – I just have a related question that you have probably already been thinking about. Were we saved for the purpose of being used?
Not that I necessarily know….but it appears we are saved, to be used, to bring glory to God.(Which is maybe the more lofty goal than just saving people???) My church has been doing a whole series on “The Tower”, and talking about how we naturally want to be great, which is a good thing, but get it wrong when we begin to try to build towers for our glory, and not tower for His glory. Leading people to Christ, is building towers for His glory.
Your imaginary friend is imaginary.
What a breath of fresh air… you actually read the Bible to see what it says, instead of expecting it to confirm your early church perceptions. By the way, if Malachi were still in his physical body, he would retweet you and link to your blog. Well done!
Excellent and very true. I remember the day when I was hired to work at a mega church. Really, I thought? How do I qualify to work at a church? I never was one who remembered scriptures or where to find things in the bible. Just how could God use me, I thought. Why were they so eager to hire me? Oh, boy… almost 9 years later, I can look back and see just how powerfully God used me during those years on staff. I no longer work at the church as my assignment there ended almost 2 years ago. But, as my pastor, Rob Bell, once told me when I left, “remember that the church is more than those 4 walls, the non-profit 501 (c) 3, the place where you once got your paycheck… keep your eyes on the broader church.” He was right. God is using my life in ways I never imagined. I still can’t remember where to find things in the bible. Go figure.
I agree with most everything here, and definitely believe God wants to use me, but I don’t agree that I can ask God for things. In fact, the only things I can ask Him are for serenity, acceptance, courage and wisdom. Anything on top of that is asking God to do my will. And my God doesn’t take those kinds of requests.
Really!? God is described as being the good Father who wants to give us good gifts in a much more abundant way than an earthly father with his children. Of course we can ask. But we need to be willing to accept the answer even if it is “no”.
[...] else’s blog, and it was such a breath of fresh air. The author is a fellow named Donald Miller. Here’s the article that caught my attention. I haven’t read all of his stuff, and so it’s too early for me to vouch for him. But this [...]
C’mon Don, you know better than this. While churchianity’s requirements are different than God’s, there is a requirement to be used by God. There are two kinds of people God uses in the Bible. Gideon, Barak, Samson, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus are all people who said “yes” to God and were used by him to do significant good. Even Naaman the Syrian and Balaam agreed to do what God said to do for a time. But people like pharaoh and Judas deliberately chose not to do what God wanted resulting in significant evil. So it really depends on what you want to be used by God for — good or evil. A willfully chosen answer is required.
I don’t agree with your use of dualism to interpret the text. only two kinds of people? the lens through which you are viewing the text is causing you to distort the reality. he uses whoever he wants, whether they want to be used or not.
God used Pharoah to display His glory, God can and will use anybody He wants in anyway that He wants.
It is interesting to see how Pharaoh is being used by God as the tool of liberation for Israel. The repeated idea of ”Pharaoh’s hardened heart” is seen throughout the first section of Exodus and the interesting part is that Pharaoh’s hardened heart is for God to display His glory to Israel. Pharaoh never said ”Yes Lord, use me.”Still God used him…
Another one is the exile of Israel which God warned through his prophets would come if they didn’t turn from idolatry. King Shalmaneser 5 of Assyria sent Israel into exile, therefore also fulfilling what God had warned about. He became a tool to do the will of God…
God cannot be placed in a box…
Don: Point taken: there are more than two kinds of people. Nonetheless, Esther was given a choice to work with God or not to save the Jews from annihilation and the consequences of a negative choice were spelled out to her. So she did have a choice to be used or not. Furthermore, we all have a choice to accept God for who he is or not. And while we can negotiate with God regarding specifics, a choice for or against him or his call to serve is needed. So while I agree with your contention that we don’t need to attain a specified spiritual state to be used, he still won’t force us to do something against our will. He will by his nature honor our choices whether they are for or against him.
Except that sometimes honouring our choice means we get swallowed by a whale in our rebellion.
This may be my favorite thing in the history of ever.
I just have one question. Why is the churches standards different from Gods standards for using people? I have been working in church for a while now and now matter how many times I get confronted with this question, my reply can only be that I believe God has called me to work in the church. The church in the previous statement defined as the local church, the building we go to every other day. In our culture here in South africa much of the church is seen as a place to meet with God, people see church and God in the same picture, and that means the local church. Many people I talk to compare how they see church with how they see God. Why are we in church than trying to present church as the perfection of holiness while nobody is perfect and people are so tired of fake, everybody wants something real. I feel (this is just my experience and what I get from people I talk to) that we have settles in the tradition of doing things the way they have always been and not the way Jesus did it. Is this His intention for His church? is church not the expression of who God is? We are all real people working in church and claiming ourselves to be theologically equipped, but first and foremost real people and I think our system of church needs to be made out of a lot more real people and less holy people.
This article is very well written. I do wish you were more straightforward though. I think the Bible is quite clear that God WILL use you and you and you and me. He used “sinners” like Abraham the liar to demonstrate His power to Pharoah, Jonah the avoider to reveal Himself to his shipmates (in the midst of their sin and/or rebellion), etc. He also used sinners like Pharoah in His plan to free the Isrealites, Judas to get Jesus to the cross (in the midst of their out-right rebellion against God), etc. God uses the weak to shame the “strong”, the foolish to shame the “wise”.
God is using famous athiests today to demonstrate the foolishness of rejecting Him. God WILL use you and me. The only question is whether you will realize it, acknowledge it and actively participate, or do so in ignorance believing that your doubt is stronger than God’s power to use you for His purposes.
Also, I believe you are incorrect to state that the church must use a higher standard than God in order to use people. Was not Paul a murderer (worse than Moses)?!? I believe that this premise is false (and Pharisaical -sp?) and is the chief reason the church is not growing today like it did in the beginning. How dare we hold people to a higher standard than God Himself does! This is works-based righteousness and not true Christianity. The church reflects the world too much when we do this. We need to judge by God’s standards instead.
Is not the appeal of the gospel that ANYONE can be forgiven, AND used by God to be His ambassador? In fact, we’re not forgiven simply to be forgiven, live out our lives feeling all snuggly with God, then go to Heaven. We’re forgiven to be forgiven AND used by God. Paul was a well -learned man, but many of the Apostles were simple fisherman. And it wasn’t primarily the Apostles who spread the church beyond Jerusalem. It was the thousands of “common” Christians who were dispersed in the first persecution who spread it when they went back home.
Each of us is given gifts – “for the building up of the church.” We should all expect to be used by God, no matter what our obvious strengths and/or weaknesses.
thanks. Reading your blog really encouraged me this evening.
Of course God wants to use each and every one of us for His purpose! We are all made with His stamp on our hearts… we are the ones that choose to either let God use us or not. Either way, God loves us undeniably and will always seek our whole hearts!
[...] What Kind of Person Does God Use? – Don Miller [...]
It totally depends on what and how you mean God will use you. Luther once said that God makes no distinction between vocations.
If he calls you to be a milkmaid or a priest – there is no distinction in that vocation.. for God is both working through you and calling you into that vocation.
”You may be unqualified to be used by the church, but you aren’t unqualified to be used by God, because he can use anybody.”
So true, Don! We need to hear this today…And the world doesn’t want perfect people. They want willing people.
I find it interesting that many times the church has standards that appear to out standard God. In reality, the church needs to have a different standard than the ones God uses. It should not mean that people should start thinking they are bigger than their God. Good thought, Don!
Donald,
My friend reads your blog… a lot. She always drops in little bits of inspiration in some of our conversations, and I think to myself.. “Yea, I should check out his blog.” I forget.
I made a habit of forgetting.
So, it was a surprise to me to find the link to your blog today in an email from this friend of mine.
She said the blog reminded her of me.
We had recently had a discussion where I shared with her God has been nudging me to write my memoir.
I have been standing in the way, “Who, little ole Me? I can’t offer anything. Who wants to read a memoir about a teenage pregnancy and drug addiction?”
She laughed, ” You say teenage pregnancy and drug addiction and I hear Awesome mom and beautiful recovery.”
God has been elbowing my sides for the past week, sending me reminders that He has a plan, a bigger plan, than just me writing a book.
Apparently, there are a lot of women in the world who are struggling, hurting, broken. Did you know that?
It’s not news to me, although I would like to pretend I have no clue.
So I realize my story is not just a story about me, but more so THE story between me and God.
Sort of a love story, one could say.
And I am starting to write it. The dark and the light, holding nothing back.
Your blog helped to encourage me a little bit more today, as I sometimes get the urge to give up, give in to the busy life I live, basically make excuses.
So, thanks a million.
PS. You know one of my dear friends, Alison.
She used to be a Wisdom.
[...] "The people God can use are different than the people the church can use." (Miller) [...]
I don’t think God wants to use people. If you were in a dating relationship or a friendship, and started talking about the other person “using” you, that probably wouldn’t be a good thing. God doesn’t want to use people, he wants to have relationships with them. And in having relationships with them, what he pours into one person will naturally spill over into the other people with whom they come in contact. Does the Bible ever mention God “using” people? Does Jesus ever “use” people? Or is this just one more Christianism that, when we really think about it, makes God a lot more like a sales rep than a Person?
I think God uses all sorts of people for His purposes.
He even uses our sin for His purposes. Look how He used the Roman soldiers at Calvary.
He might even be able to use me now and then…and I’m about as useless as one could be.
Thanks.
Here is a question- will God use a sinner to preach salvation?
Totally agree with this post, in fact I have been serving the Lord just because someone believed that God can use anybody and that you don’t need years of seminary and experience in order to tell someone the simple truth that “God loved the world..”
Inspiring! Little is much if God is in it.
Little is much if God is in it. If we will each seek the Lord and desire to do what we can, then He’ll use even the little things and our willingness to do whatever He shows us in order to accomplish great things.
There’s a great book, Jake’s Story that illustrates this. Check it out. http://www.jakecolsen.com
Praise GOD—->Awesome analogy…. GOD is so good & unpredictable; & his love for each & everyone of us go beyond measure..
I have always been thinking dat I am not worthy to b in d presence of God… But I think I now Have understanding about d people God uses. D bibletells us that d mercy of God is beyond Human wisdom. It means it doesn’t really matter if I am of a shy type or not He can still use me. God b Glorified…