A Simple Wire

1 Corinthians 3:5,7 (NIV)  What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task… So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

I’ve had to do a lot of transferring of information lately using my computer and phone. This takes three pieces of equipment: The computer, which is the real brains of the operation… the cord that connects to the computer and to my phone… and my phone. My phone is able to receive and process the information that comes from the computer via the cord.

As I think about that very simple picture, I thought about how God graciously uses believers – including me – to be the “conduit” of the Gospel. The least important part of the above arrangement is the cord. And that is true also when God uses me to communicate His love in Christ to people. All the information is with Him, including all that Jesus is and all that He has done in the Incarnation – His first coming to be one of us. God was in flesh in Christ. He was the perfect expression of the love of God – sent to die for sinners so that they might know God, enjoy fellowship with Him, and receive His gift of eternal life. The Gospel is glorious news and is the perfect thing to “connect” with (“send” to) lost sinners. In my simplistic illustration the sinner is like the disconnected phone. It needs a connection to the computer. I know as technology advances there are wireless ways that information can get to phones, so the illustration isn’t perfect. But what is important is that the information needs to get to the phone. It is not built into it. In the older way of using a cord, power comes to the phone, as well as information that can radically change the phone.

The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation that the sinner needs. The Gospel is the message the sinner needs to hear. The Gospel is what transforms lives. The cord is not the power. The cord is not the message. The cord does not transform lives. It is simply a transmitter of information. Believers in Christ are like that cord. We have no power within ourselves. The message of the Gospel does not originate with us. We did not think it up. And we do not have the power to transform lives. All these things are from God through Christ. And God has chosen to use us in His plan and His work to transmit the Gospel and to change lives. What an act of grace on His part. Why should He need or want to use me? But He does, and it is a blessed privilege. The Church exists for the sake of the Gospel. Without the Gospel there is no reason for the Church to exist. It is the most important thing we “transmit”, and is of eternal value.

May the Lord use us freely and fully, and may we rejoice to be used in something that is ultimately not about us. It’s all about Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:9-11 (NIV) ⁹  For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹  Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Galatians 2:20 (KJV)  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Romans 15:17-18 (NIV) ¹⁷  Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. ¹⁸  I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—

2 Timothy 4:17 (NIV)  But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth.

PRAYER:  Lord, let me be a conduit totally at your disposal. May your Spirit use me to speak and to demonstrate the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, your Son. Thank you for the person(s) you used to transmit the Good News to me. You have changed, and you are changing my life and I rejoice to be your child – and to know that by your grace I am the object of your love. Praise you! In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott