10/24/2022
Is God making us into something that will dramatically change the world in which we live? Then, as we are pulled across the people and places in our lives are they being transformed by us? Are we the tools that winnow them like wheat, separating what is good and useful about them from those parts that are not?
“Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff; you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.”
Isaiah 41:15-16 ESV
I hope that some of us will become threshing sledges, and that as we are being pulled across the raw, and unrefined, that many are saved. At first glance this might appear to be a rather mundane, and perhaps destructive process, but it glorifies God as we separate the good grain of His harvest from the chaff, and fill His storehouse with nourishing meal.
Are we allowing God to use us in this way? Are we moving beyond having become grains of wheat ourselves, into being transformed miraculously into implements of the harvest; tools that alter the world?
“His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.””
Luke 3:17 ESV
Too often we want to be changed; we want to become men and women of faith, grains of wheat, but we neglect the fact that some of us will be called to be much more. We look at the Great Commission that Jesus placed upon His disciples, and when we hear it ourselves, we think that He must have been talking to someone else… not to us! We think our lips are too unclean, or that our speech is inadequate, like Isaiah, and Moses did…
“And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.””
Isaiah 6:5-7 ESV
“But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”
Exodus 4:10-11 ESV
David spent many days throwing stones with his sling in the pastures before he faced Goliath on the battlefield, and Samuel served Eli for many years before he heard God call his name in the night, and he began to serve God directly. These are many other stories about transformation… the same transformation that we will undergo whether it is in our lives of faith as believers, or beyond that as we are transformed into threshing room implements that gather in a much larger harvest.
The question for each of us today is this… are we called to be grains of wheat, to believe, or are we called further, to become implements of the harvest? Will we be ground into flour and made into bread for the Lord ’s Table, or will we become the threshing sledge that fills His storehouses with sacks of grain? This is the day that the Lord has made… so what will He make you to be in it, and will His calling change your reward at judgement?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for transforming us from fallen creatures into righteous persons through your son Jesus Christ, and although this is the product of your amazing grace, and sufficient for us, we listen all the more intently to hear whether you will call our name again, and transform us further into the tools of a greater harvest. No matter our calling we long to glorify you, and whether large, or small, we love you the same, and serve you with equal vigor. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who creates us all, and calls us each to your service in a particular fashion. Praised be your name for every word we speak of you, and your Son Jesus. Though we might lead one soul or a million to you, our hearts are the same, and our mission is written with the same pen, and with the same intent… to glorify you. Merciful are you Father who calls us from a mountainside, or lifts us up from a valley where we are lost alone. Great is your voice that speaks to each ear individually as you reach out to call us from the crowd. Wash us one at a time with the blood of Jesus, and cleanse us from each and every sin we are guilty of. Change the world Lord, by changing each of us; by changing me. Teach us to dramatically change the world one soul at a time… even as we are winnowing them from the world in mass. Judge me Father as I stand alone with Christ before you, like every other believer. See me on that day as one who has been transformed in Jesus, and not for those grand callings you might have blessed me with, because those things were all of you, and no different from the simple tasks that others performed for you. Your pleasure in me, and your pleasure in others who believe, is the same, and eternity in your presence is likewise the same eternity for each of us… the big and small, rich and poor, great and lowly. Praised be your name, and all glory be your… now, and forevermore.
Rich Forbes