But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9
Our purpose is to declare the excellencies of God. What an amazing calling we have!
Can you imagine someone such as Bill Gates one of the richest people in the world coming to you and making you such an offer as wanting to prove to the world how good, how wise and how powerful he is by pouring all of his resources into your life to meet your every need in abundance?
With only one condition, that you depend on Him to have your all needs met. You must call on him first whenever you are in trouble. You must do everything in your life through him. You must rely on him completely so he can show just how excellent a person he is through your life. You would be as united to him as a branch is united and dependent on its vine. Doing nothing but receiving from him until your life swells and overflows as a living example of his provision and power.
Although Bill Gates could offer someone a lot, his offer would still be limited, by his finances, by his wisdom, by his health, by his influence and resources. His resources though great are yet limited. He could not make such an offer to everyone who wanted it, but only a select few as he could realistically afford to care for.,, that is if he could ever make such an insane offer to anyone at all. In reality, even the richest man in all the world could not provide for all the needs of even one person, because even in all his riches, he is still limited and his own life remains as temporary as our own.
But our God is limitless. We can never exhaust him. He is eternal, he is always present and his offer is wide open to all who receive him and believe in his name. He has given us the right to become children of God. He richly blesses all who call upon Him so that He might be glorified through us. (John 1:12, Romans 10:12, Psalm 50:15) It’s an insane offer, but this is what our He has done for us!
Our every need is an opportunity for him to display the excellence of his richness.
Our every weakness an opportunity for him to display the excellence of his great strength.
Our every question an opportunity for him to pour into our lives his wisdom.
Our every failure an opportunity for him to display his grace and mercy.
Our every day an opportunity to show us the depth of his love.
Our every trouble an opportunity for him to be shown as our Savior.
Call upon me in the day of trouble;I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” – Psa. 50:15
What an amazing position we have in Christ to be living demonstrations of God’s excellencies! His great wisdom, power, love, his perfect goodness, his abundant provision, his mercy, This is our insane reality! We are living vessels that he pours his own life into, to reveal his excellence through us. We are chosen recipients of his grace, called to declare his excellence even as we receive it. We are unable to contain it for its abundance, unable to hide it for its effect. But how very little we depend on him or call on him as our source of strength. Instead we rely on ourselves.
Every time we do not call upon God our Father in our day of trouble, in our time of need, instead of declaring his excellence in providing for us and meeting our needs, instead we portray him as distant, absent, uninvolved, non-caring, undependable, unreliable, unable to save or help, worthless, deficient, weak and nonexistent beyond our personal ideology. How greatly we malign his name instead of glorifying it every time we do not call upon Him.
How great a sin is our prayerlessness.
