God Uses Faithful People
… For I was the king’s cupbearer. Nehemiah 1:11
Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king. He was neither a prophet like Elijah, nor a priest like Jeremiah, nor a general of a powerful army like Naaman. Nehemiah was just an ordinary official in the king’s court. He was a normal working man. But as the love for God and His people started to well up in Nehemiah’s heart, God raised him up to bring restoration to His people.
Isn’t that encouraging? You may be like Nehemiah holding an ordinary nine-to-five job in your workplace and trying hard to earn a living. You may have never finished university or studied in a Bible seminary. Yet God can still use you in a wonderful way. You may be insignificant in the eyes of other people or even in your own eyes. But it is your heart that God is interested in. God often raises up somebody who is considered a “nobody” in the eyes of the world and makes a great leader out of him.
The touch of God came upon Moses when he was faithfully shepherding his flock in the desert. The call of God came upon Gideon when he was faithfully threshing wheat in the winepress. Elisha was discovered when he was faithfully plowing the field. Amos received his mandate when he was faithfully tending his flock as a shepherd and holding on to a second job as a farmer. Jesus called Simon Peter when he was faithfully fishing, and Matthew when he was faithfully doing his rounds as a tax collector.
All were ordinary people—insignificant in the eyes of the world—but were called by the Lord while they were being faithful in their daily jobs. All Nehemiah had was the simple duty of a cupbearer, which means he was nothing more than a waiter in the royal court. But he was a
faithful man who won the trust and favor of the king. All too often, Christians think that they are far too spiritual to bother about doing their everyday work well. “Oh, I just need to pray and life should be very easy for me. My job is no longer that important.” Quite on the contrary, your faithfulness at work is going to qualify or disqualify you from the fulfilment of God’s purpose for your life. Being “blessed” is to be empowered to succeed through hard work, faithfulness and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Receiving God’s blessing definitely does not mean that you are given a free handout in life. Proverbs 10:4 says that “lazy men are soon poor; hard workers get rich.” Nehemiah wasn’t lazy at all. He had an ordinary job but he gave his whole heart to it. And in his faithfulness, the mandate of the Lord came to him. You will never be used by God unless you work hard at what you’re supposed to be doing.
We just need to know one word and we will know what bible is talking about,nice talking to you Pastor,see you in heaven with lots of Christ followers.:b
God bless.
Hi Pastor Kong, thanks for your message this weekend (18 – 19 July 2009). Love the CHC DNA. I don’t know if this is the right place to give the following feedback but I don’t know where else to do so. I am just an ordinary member and have not been very active in church ministry for a long while now due to work commitment (I have only been ministering to friends and friends’ rebellious teenage children), so I don’t know if I have the right to give this feedback. However, I just thought you should know anyway. FYI, have not felt the presence of God in my Cell Group for more than 6 months now. Fellowship before and after Cell Group is longer than the 15 minutes of worship (no praise) and 15 mins of lessons (most of the time without turning to the Bible) that we have been having for Cell Group. Felt sad that Cell Group has been reduced to just quickly getting over with it.. Have always looked forward to Cell Group before but not anymore. Had thoroughly enjoyed The Song of Solomon series and it was a good break from Cell Group. Have always loved your teaching series. So will always try not to miss any lessons. Also, missed those days where teachings for Cell Group were prepared and taught from the top and passed on to Zone / Cell Group leaders and then to the members. Nowadays, Zone / Cell Group leaders seemed to have to seek revelations from God themselves. That is only good if the Zone / Cell Group leaders are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:3), full of faith (Acts 6:5) and have time to seek the face of God. Otherwise, nobody knows what kind of teachings will come forth. What came to mind was the example of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus took “the 5 loaves and 2 fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes.” (Matthew 14:19) Personally, I believe it should be that way for the Word of God as well. It is just my opinion. I may not be completely right but I just thought I bring it up as it has been troubling me…….. Also, just want to let you know that I read your “daily devotion” on a daily basis as much as I could. It was a good idea to put it up on the web and I love them. If I missed a day due to unforeseen circumstances like the other day, there was an error when I clicked on “read more”, is there any way, we could go back to read the devotion of the previous day that we missed? If it is not possible, it is okay. Just checking it out. Don’t need to bother yourself too much about it as I know you are very busy.
Hello Pastor,
i am learning from this article nothing worthwhile ever comes without hard work. God favors the backbone not the wishbone..it encourages me to put the uncommon touch on even the most common task.We may never have the opportunity to do great things in a great way.but we all have the chance to do small things in a great way.we have to be faithful in our work even when we think no one is looking.
thank you so much and God bless you!
In 1Cor 1:27, Paul says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
This is the mission statement given to my by our Lord Jesus. I was called and look upon by many to be a fool but I thanks Lord Jesus for giving me the Holy Spirit our helper who had been my personal greatest Biblical teacher on earth, he brought and manage Gift of Wisdom and discernment in me. What our Holy Spirit had inspired and taught me by way of revelations and leading me into events, online article had somehow give me much deeper Biblical knowledge than other people. So those people has been thinking that I weak because I am not doing ministry in the Church but our Lord Jesus is the Supreme Commander, I listened and obeyed his commandment. I had started and been his steward for running and maintaining http://www.esharingportal.com I personally wrote 50 articles and more than 130,000 people had read articles in this esharingportal, it is like administrating to them. We had received testimonies of people turned around, wanted to attend church more often after reading the article and some also convicted to give tithe. Yes I am a fool, emailing, SMS to people about the 24/7 care system, even though I knew they wouldn’t care, they conveniently delete away the email. But as Sun Ho had said, “Who care whatever other people think? I’ll just continue to do God’s work.”
Yes, I been seem as a weakling by many “Strong man” but I thank Lord Jesus for giving the the courage of a lion, so that I can roar aloud and attack and kill the unholy anytime but I know that I know, Roaring and swiping my sharpen paws like sword of God will hurt someone, I have to remind myself to do it love.
■Rhoda Lim, I am glad that you are seeing things not right. I had personally encountered this in previous CG. At first when I stepped in, I can feel the house of God warm, (CG meeting). Then later it feel cold. I see these people runned CG by “The System”. What they do is after getting people convert to Christian, they wash hand and throw “newbies” into the system and prior these “newbies” were converted, these group are so friendly and loving but once put to the CG, suddenly their “love” disappear. Even though I already know what is happening, I wanted to stay behind to help these people turn around but Lord Jesus just don’t let me. Two incidents, our Lord Jesus allow it happen (mid last year 2008).
Incident 1 – Just after morning prayer at JURONG West, the man (who is operated by Shadow of darkness within) This man spoke to me scornfully in a demonic voice “You better left this place and Go home NOW!” I was taken aback because after morning prayer, everybody already knew that they have to go back. After reaching home, as I think about it. I knew why the shadow of darkness have to chase me home. That was because I was interceding for someone during prayer and “the shadow of darkness” is not happy with me trying to turn a sister around.
Incident 2 – Following day, our Lord make another incident happened such that this sister SMS “I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I don’t want to see you anymore.” I knew what was happening, she was being used and the uncalled for reaction was the result of vengence over email I had sent. (because I pointed out the many are blind and deaf and need to pray for).
I understood why our Lord Jesus make these 2 things happened plus some confirmation, he wanted me to move to another Ground. I am now with another CG. Definitely CG leaders who only operates on CG meeting and Weekend Church service is not doing the job of Spiritual mentor and father. They are not qualified. The CG that I left, even I was with them for only about 6 months, I detected 7 critical wrong teachings. I just mention 2 of them here,
We all know that Bible and Church teaches us that when we pray, we lock up in a room and pray in private, don’t be a hypocrite like the Pharisee who pray aloud and openly in the public. But this previous CG leader once teach “You should not be ashamed of praying in tongue in the public places. You can pray anywhere you like because it is you direct communication with God and you should not be ashame to do it.” Then worst, teaches member offensive language. “If any people ask what you are doing, tell them NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.” This language is used by hooligans, only the “F” word is missing in between YOUR and Business.
Then he also taught about the role of spiritual father, there many good Christian spiritual father example, like Lester who fathers Ulf Hekman, Rev Dr A.R. Bernard who father Pastor Kong and Sun Ho, but you know who he used as good example of spiritual father? THE DEMONIC FIGURE “ADOLF HITLER” We really have to be careful, there are raving Wolve inside sheep skin.
In 1Cor 1:27, Paul says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
It is true that if we are faithful God will use us, e.g. Matt 25:21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”, however, I think some of the examples in this devotional are a bit misleading… it makes out… Read More those people to be “good guys” who God called…. actually several of them were not following God when He called them, e.g. Moses had murdered a guy and run off to live with his father in law where he tended the sheep!
Actually the point of several of those passages (as well as others such as Noah) are there to show us how SAVES us in our unrighteousness and unworthiness. That is why Paul writes in 1 Cor 6:9-11 “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? …And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified…”
which when you think about it, is even more amazing!