Yet He Still Loves and Uses Us
People doing dumb has been a common theme as we’ve been going through the Old Testament of the Bible.
We started out the New Year’s message discussing our plan to read through the Old Testament. Reading the Old Testament can be a little scary, but it’s not as scary doing it as a group.
The first Sunday we got a word for the year. This was done by drawing a random word from a basket. My word for the year is deserve. We are all more blessed than we deserve.
This is evident as we look back at the people in the Bible that we’ve discussed.
These people were
- Adulterers – Sarah had Abraham sleep with another women, Abraham slept with other women, Jacob slept with other women
- Cheaters – Jacob cheated Esau out of his inheritance, Labon cheated Jacob and gave him Leah for his wife
- Thieves – Rachel stole idols from her father
- Murderers – Moses killed a man
- Idolators – Aaron made the golden calf for the Israelites
This is a pretty sketchy bunch of people, yet God used all of them in His plan and as part of Jesus’ linage.
And He will use us in His plan too.
It’s hard for me to understand how these people would one minute be talking with angles or be freeing people using miracles from God and then turn right around and do stupid things.
This week’s focus was on Aaron. How is it that he could be so dumb as to build an idol after have having just been involved in freeing the Israelites from Egypt? (Exodus 32:1-6)
It’s because like us…he’s human.
Who knows exactly why he did it? But who knows why we do some of the stupid things we do?
The important thing to remember is…there is no amount of stupid we can do to stop God from loving and using us.
It all comes down to us accepting our mistakes and working to do what God wants going forward. This doesn’t mean that our dumb mistakes don’t come at a price. It just means that as long as we’re still alive…we can do better going forward if we choose to.