Monday, October 1, 2007

Looking Past What They are Now

Jefe preached a great message last night about Mark, Barnabas’ nephew. You really need to get the cd. He went over how Mark, because of the excitement left with Paul and Barnabas to do great things for God but quickly fell away. Later on Barnabas wanted to restore Mark, but Paul didn’t want anything to do with it. Well in the long run we see that Mark did become useful and Paul was 100% behind him.

The lesson learned here is that we never need to give up on people.

I can remember when I just started turning my life over to the Lord there were a few critics. They didn’t have a lot of good things to say about me. Now, instead of trying to help me and bring me along, they only liked telling other people how I wasn’t a good candidate for the ministry. Instead of helping they just cast their ballots that I wouldn’t make it.

I am thankful that Jefe didn’t listen to them. I am thankful he saw past what I was and saw what I could become. Now some of those men or men like them look at me now and say, “Hey I wish I had a guy like that working for me.” But you know what, they never will because they are not willing to look past what someone is to what they can become. They only want the finished product. They will never have a band of men to follow after them because they were not willing to put their pharisee spirit aside to invest their life into someone.

If you’re looking to work with ready made Christians you really need to look for another profession. We need more men that will look past the insufficiencies of people and see what they can become. It is amazing what someone can become when they know they have someone that believes in them.

Jefe has a lot of guys that look to him for guidance and council because he at one time believed in them when no one else would. There are missionaries all over the world working now that others didn’t have a lot of confidence in.

We have students in our training center now that no one else believes in, but they came to the right man for second chances.

Might we have more 1st men that have the courage to invest time into people that love God and have a desire to become more than what they are now.

2 comments:

April Baker said...

This is a wonderful, entry. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Unknown said...

Mark, I love the blog.

This article was great about looking to see what God can do in others. This is something we need to keep in our minds throughout our lives as we meet new people daily.