Every Christian should be looking to the Lord for something to do in the kingdom of God, and everyone ought to be asking God to honour him with a job too big for him. That’s why I pity anybody who can do everything he is trying to do, who limits himself timidly to that which he knows he can do.
What a sad thing for a Christian to say, “I’m going to serve the Lord, but I’m going to serve God strictly within the framework of my own ability to get the thing done.” If we are to accomplish what God expects of us, the improbability of our task will surely drive us to our knees with the cry, “O God, who am I?” I think it may be safely said that God is still looking for men who know their own insufficiencies so well that He can perform the miraculous through them.
A prime illustration is in the life of Moses, as recorded in Exodus chapter three. Moses asked the question, “Who am I?” in the face of a staggering call from God- a call to go back and face a hostile empire and to liberate and bring out of Egypt a whole nation of more than a million people.
Moses said, “I can’t.” God said, “Moses, I know you can’t, but go and do it!” If Moses had arisen immediately upon receiving the call, and said, “All right, when do I start?” God would have had to put him through another furnace of testing.
This is a principle so true of us all in our human experiences. Whenever I think I can stand up and say, “I am now strong enough, sufficient enough, I can do it!” then God fades out, and there comes only grief and woe and sterility and fruitlessness and, finally, eclipse.
So, we are faced with new tasks, with the need of cleansing, with the need of atonement, with the mysteries of life and death and immortality, and I say, “O God, who am I?”
And God replies, “Son, it doesn’t make too much difference who you are- I am all you need!” So, I give to you today the One Who is everything you need. Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is our holiness forevermore, redemption full and sure-He is all we need.
In this day of glorification of human talent, we are grateful for all human abilities, but we are not envious of any of it. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).