{"id":1112,"date":"2009-08-31T07:39:20","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T12:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shieldsgroup.com\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2009-08-31T08:41:48","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T13:41:48","slug":"how-to-be-used-by-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/31\/how-to-be-used-by-god\/","title":{"rendered":"How to be Used by God…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d like my life to have some meaning. <\/strong>More meaning than pleasing myself and the people I love. Even pleasing the people I love is pretty selfish, if you think about it.<\/p>\n

Years ago Christians used to speak of being “vessels”<\/strong> for God. The idea was that Christians carried God’s love, grace, healing, and message to the world. Vessels carry things. In this podcast, I propose a different word: faucets.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, when one is emphasizing the power of God and his sovereignty, you can get the impression that people are not important to God at all. But that\u2019s not the case. People are very important to God. He honors and finds pleasure in it when they serve him. No one can count the amount of work God\u2019s had done through people like you and me. God uses faucets. And some of the vessels he\u2019s used weren\u2019t exactly gold-plated faucets. He doesn\u2019t always use Herbeau <\/em>fixtures.<\/p>\n

You know what Herbeau <\/em>faucets are, right? Looking online, I learned that the least expensive faucet Herbeau <\/em>makes is 3001 Royale, priced at $1,349. The Herbeau <\/em>3405 Royale Deck Mounted Exposed Thermostatic Tub & Shower Faucet goes for $8,987. Their most expensive one goes for only $9,106. God isn\u2019t looking for Herbeau <\/em>faucets. The vessel conveying the blessing of God is important, but it doesn\u2019t have to be perfect.<\/p>\n

Mark Dricsoll, a fairly radical<\/strong>, but extremely biblical pastor in the northwest notes that God uses some vessels \u2013 some faucets \u2013 that almost anyone else would disqualify. You can read a quote from him in this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This sermon podcast talks<\/strong> about having the faith to trust God to use you to deliver his message to a needy world.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/mp3s\/amq\/2009\/matthew\/20090830Morning_MustardSeedFaithAndFaucets.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d like my life to have some meaning. More meaning than pleasing myself and the people I love. Even pleasing the people I love is pretty selfish, if you think about it. Years ago Christians used to speak of being … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[416,417,101],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-sermon-podcasts","tag-mp3","tag-podscast","tag-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9XvmV-hW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shieldsgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}