Jonah 4 and devotional

Jonah 4
Jonah's Anger at the Lord 's Compassion

1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." 4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"

5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

10 But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion:

Philippians 1:3-11
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3I thank my God every time I remember you. 4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 7It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. 8God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

9And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

January 6, 2008

Ripple EffectREAD: Philippians 1:3-11

I pray . . . that you may approve the things that are excellent. —Philippians 1:9-10 About this cover As a kid, one of my favorite pastimes was skipping stones across the surface of a smooth lake. Inevitably, ripples would flow from the impact of the stone.

It’s like that with choices. Every choice we make creates a ripple effect on our lives as well as on the lives of others. The choices we have made throughout life determine where we are and what we are becoming.

Choices are also telling. What we really want, love, and think show up in the choices we make.

It’s no wonder then that Paul urged us to make “excellent” choices—choices that emanate from a heart fully committed to Jesus. He stated that when our love abounds in knowledge and discernment, we are able to understand what is best, so that we may “approve the things that are excellent” (Phil. 1:9-10). Excellent choices are the proof of a life that is deeply committed to Jesus and His ways, and they have the ripple effect of filling our lives “with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (v.11).

As a friend of mine wisely told me, our lives are not made by the dreams we dream but by the choices we make. Let’s make excellent ones! —Joe Stowell

Do a deed of simple kindness,Though its end you may not see;It may reach, like widening ripples,Down a long eternity. —Norris

Make an excellent choice and watch the ripple effect of blessing.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers:

January 6, 2008

WorshipLISTEN: READ:

He moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord —Genesis 12:8 About this cover Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love-gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard it for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded (see Exodus 16:20 ). God will never allow you to keep a spiritual blessing completely for yourself. It must be given back to Him so that He can make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of fellowship with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abram "pitched his tent" between the two. The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private times of fellowship and oneness with Him. Rushing in and out of worship is wrong every time— there is always plenty of time to worship God. Days set apart for quiet can be a trap, detracting from the need to have daily quiet time with God. That is why we must "pitch our tents" where we will always have quiet times with Him, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three levels of spiritual life— worship, waiting, and work. Yet some of us seem to jump like spiritual frogs from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together as one. They were always together in the life of our Lord and in perfect harmony. It is a discipline that must be developed; it will not happen overnight.


TGIF Devotional:

Receiving Only From GodOs Hillman

To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven." - John 3:27

"God never gave you that property," said my friend who had entered my life at a time of great turmoil. These were hard words at the time. I was separated in my marriage, and my financial resources were drying up on all fronts. It was like rowing a boat with five big holes in it, not knowing which one to try to plug. My business, my personal finances, my marriage, all seemed to be drying up at the same time. My friend had made an observation about some land we had purchased years before. His point was that I had acquired something that God had never given me. In other words, it was not a Spirit-directed purchase that was blessed by God. It was not a by-product of God's blessing; it was a source of sweat and toil born out of the wrong motives of the heart.

When John's disciples came to him and asked if he was the Messiah, he responded that he was not and that one could only be what God had given him to be. He was a forerunner to the Messiah, and he was fulfilling a call God had given him. We cannot acquire and become anything that God has not given us. God gave John that anointing. We must ask whether we are trying to be or trying to acquire anything God has not given us. When we seek to acquire anything that God has not given us, we can expect God to respond to us like any good father would to a child. He will remove that which the child is not supposed to have.

David understood this principle. When he was preparing to furnish the temple, he told God in his prayer, "Everything comes from You, and we have given You only what comes from Your hand" (1 Chron. 29:14b).


Tough Questions and Some answer's, Crash Course to follow Christ.
The Nature of Man

Biblical theology can be summed up by saying that God is holy and we are not. When we catch a glimpse of the holiness of God, we begin to see just how far we humans fall short of that standard. While we have already given some passages to convey the idea that man is sinful, we would like to explore this even further. It is crucial to understand this truth in order to understand Christianity. It is because of the depth of our sin that it was necessary for Christ to come to redeem us from our sin.

Read Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, 1 Kings 8:46, Job 14:1-4, Job 25:2-6, Psalm 14, Psalm 51:3-5, Psalm 53:1-3, Psalm 58:3-5, Proverbs 14:12, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Isaiah 53:6, Isaiah 55:8-9, Isaiah 59:2, Isaiah 64:6, Jeremiah 17:9, Daniel 9:1-11, Mark 7:20-23, Romans 3:9-23, Romans 5:12-21, Romans 7:13-25, Romans 8:5-8, Romans 14:23, Galatians 5:16-21, Ephesians 2:1-3, James 2:10-11, 1 John 1:8-10.

We don’t necessarily need someone to tell us that we sin. We have a self-awareness of our own sin because we’ve been created by God with a conscience that has a sense of right and wrong—an innate moral code. For example, in every culture murder is wrong. Why? Because God has written a moral code on our hearts that all human life is sacred. Yet, there are those who insist that either sin does not exist, or that it does not matter. They say that, “That is just they way we are.” Statements like that are first of all naïve. We only have to examine ourselves to see that we are selfish, selfish, selfish. Nobody wakes up every morning with the thought, “How can I help all the people of the world who need help today?” Face it. We wake up with thoughts of our own problems and how we can serve ourselves. We want to make our own throne and sit on it.We do not whole heartedly seek God. Our thinking is distorted; our emotions and desires are unruly and misdirected. Man is carnal; he has corrupt affections; his will is stubborn. In this condition we are bent on rebellion. As put by Arnold Kuntz in his Prayers for Worship:

There is a tedious struggle within us, for our instincts and desires war against the ways that you would have us follow. Were you not the active agent in our Christian lives, how self-serving and how wicked we would be. Our inclinations run to lust, our motives tend toward envy. Our aims are self-indulgent. Forgive us for Jesus’ sake, and lead us out of darkness into light.

We mortals are not as bad as we could be—even Hitler had some positive traits. Yet every aspect of our being is tainted by sin. It affects our body, our capacity to think rationally without bias, indeed our whole self is infected with sin. Sin penetrates to the core. As Jesus said in Mark 7:20-23 sin comes from the heart, the very center of our existence. It is not, as some say, peripheral or incidental to mankind. The evidence from all of history cries out to the fact of man’s sinful nature. Evangelist Ray Comfort (http://www.livingwaters.com/) uses a series of questions using the Ten Commandments like the following to get people to see their sin. He first asks, “Have you ever told a lie?” (Most will say yes.) He then asks, “What does that make you?” (Most will admit that it makes them a liar.) He then asks, “Have you ever cheated or stolen anything at all?” (The honest person will normally again will say yes.) He then points out how Jesus taught that it is a sin to commit adultery even in one’s heart through lust (Matthew 5:28), the inner instincts being just as important as the external. Ray then asks, “Have you ever lusted after someone?” (Most say yes, of course.) Ray then summarizes with, “Then you have just admitted that you are a lying, stealing, adulterer at heart!” If we are honest, we must admit that on examination, we are in fact all lying, stealing, adulterers at heart. And this covers only three of the Ten Commandments! Go back to the Ten Commandments and look at each one honestly. Just start with the first two, “Have no other gods besides Me.” and “Make no graven image.” Do you ever put something higher than God on your priority list? If so, that “something” may even have become a god to you. Everyone has false gods that they worship. Just track the trail of you life—how you spend your time, your money, your thoughts—will lead one to the throne of the gods you worship. Do you ever blaspheme the name of God (Third Commandment)? Please do not take this commandment lightly. This is quite serious. Do you ever fail to honor the Sabbath day (Fourth Commandment)? You do, don’t you? Have you ever failed to honor your father or mother (Fifth Commandment)? The Bible says (1 John 3:15) that whoever hates his brother is a murderer. Do you ever have the feeling of hatred? Then you have broken the Sixth Commandment. Hatred and lust are where murder and adultery begin. Speaking personally, the writers of this study lesson are guilty of being angry, unloving, unaffirming, inconsiderate and too often have said unwarranted things even toward those people closest to us. We only have to look at ourselves honestly to see how far away we are from God’s standard of unconditional love toward others. Can you acknowledge the same? Have you ever failed to pay a bill on time, costing your creditor interest on his money? Fudged here and there on taxes or elsewhere? Downloaded music illegally? Then you have stolen (Eighth Commandment). What does that make you? A thief, right? Are you ever guilty of gossiping—saying things about someone else that tear down that person or which may not be entirely true? You are breaking the Ninth Commandment when you do that.Or have you ever coveted after something, or felt jealousy? Then you have broken the Tenth Commandment. This commandment alone should force the honest seeker to his knees. You may say, “Well, I’m just human. Everyone does these things.” But remember this. Every sin is a sin against God. It is less a matter of how great our sins are than the greatness of whom we sin against! Some people may deny their sin, thinking that sin only means murder or adultery. But sin is much more than these big and obvious sins. It is self-centeredness. If narcissism is the curse of the earth, Jesus is the antidote. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone around you loved perfectly? Other questions that can be asked of ourselves that reveal who we really are include: Have you done everything Jesus would have done? Have you always done everything you ought to have done? In fact, sin is not simply the result of a decision to do a bad thing; it is the result of failing to make a decision to do a good thing. (Read James 4:17.) Are you always a peacemaker (Matthew 5:9)? Do you ever lose your patience (Galatians 5:22)? Do you ever fail to exhibit self-control (Galatians 5:23)? Have you ever been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Do you ever waste anything (John 6:12)? Or be arrogant, quick-tempered, or drunk (Titus 1:7). How about, do you ever do emotional injury to another person—or its opposite, the failure to build someone up? Or feel contemptuous toward another person? Or do you ever harbor partiality toward others (James 2:1-9)? If you are a parent, have you adequately inculcated the ways of God to your children (Deuteronomy 11:18-21, Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 6:4)? Do you tend to retaliate or nurse grudges (Matthew 5:38-42)? In order to show us how far we are from God’s standard, Jesus told us that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). The Bible says that if we have broken even one item of the law, we are guilty of breaking the entire law (James 2:10). You may say, “That’s not fair!” But consider this, if a person goes into a store a hundred times and does not steal anything, but one time does steal something, is he guilty or innocent? The law considers him guilty! But the sinfulness of man goes even deeper than that. We sin every day in one way or another in thought, word, and deed. Every thought we have and every word we utter are recorded. On judgment day God hits the playback button! There are no secret sins (Ecclesiastes 12:14, Hebrews 4:13). Against God’s perfect holiness, we must acknowledge that we deserve his wrath. The Bible says that we suppress the truth. Read Romans 1:18-23. In some cases, the more we sin, the more we deny our sin. We get in our comfort zone and find it easy to deny our sin. Read what Jesus says about this in Revelation 3:17-18. Remember back in Genesis 3 how Adam blamed his sin on Eve, who in turn blamed it on the devil. Our nature is to just pass the buck. Human beings are into “impression management.” Examine how concerned we are with other people getting a good impression of us versus a true impression of us. Sin binds us to see ourselves better than are. In one study, out of a million respondents not even one person said that they considered themselves below average in their ability to get along with other people. Langdon Gilkey, who spent time in a minimum security Japanese internment camp in China, in his book Shantung Compound said this:

Most of us, in spite of whatever harm we may be doing to others, have long since convinced ourselves that the cause for which we do what we do is just and right...Having found these truths about human existence enacted before my eyes, I began to recall some of the theological ideas I had almost forgotten. The idea of original sin was so striking in this new context, it seemed ironic that of all the ideas linked with Christian belief, this one should probably strike the average man as most dubious. Yet, when one looks at the actual social behavior of people, this theological notion of a common, pervasive warping of our wills away from the good we wish to achieve is more descriptive of our actual experience of ourselves than is any other assessment of our situation. What the doctrine of sin has said about man’s present state seemed to fit the facts as I found them. In camp, both “good” people and “bad” people found it incredibly difficult to will the good; that is, to be objective in a situation of tension, and to be generous and fair to their neighbors. Though quite free to will whatever we wanted to do in a given situation, we were not free to will to love others, because the will did not really want to. We were literally bound in our own sin. This was, I knew, the way Christian thought had long viewed man’s predicament. It was also precisely what the facts of my experience seemed to substantiate.

The great faith leaders in history—for example, Augustine or John Calvin or Martin Luther or Billy Graham, etc.—assert that the more one seeks true spirituality, the more one realizes how truly weak and impotent the human condition really is. Even the great St. Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, acknowledged his constant failure (Romans 7:18-20). Let’s face it. When we look in the mirror we see a sinner. And what is needed are not some small adjustments to our behavior. What is needed is a radical solution for our sin.

Jesus often spoke of sin in metaphors that illustrate the havoc sin can wreak in one’s life. He described sin as blindness (Matthew 23:16-26), sickness (Matthew 9:12), being enslaved in bondage (John 8:34), and living in darkness (John 8:12, John 12:35-46). Jesus also taught that both inner thoughts and external acts render a person guilty (Matthew 5:28). He taught that from within the human heart come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly (Mark 7:21-23). The fact is that at times we are all condemning, spiteful, arrogant, and conniving. The unclean thoughts we all have convicts us. Jesus affirmed that God is fully aware of every person’s sins, both external acts and inner thoughts; nothing escapes his notice (Matthew 22:18, Luke 6:8, John 4:17-19).

Theologian R. C. Sproul in his book Saved from What? says this: In addition to the external measuring rod there is also the consideration of the heart, the internal motivation for our behavior. We judge outward appearance. God looks on the heart. From a biblical perspective, to do a good deed in the fullest sense of the word requires not only that the deed conform outwardly to the standards of God’s Law but that it proceed from a heart that loves Him and wants to honor Him. We remember the great commandment: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart’ (Matthew 22:37). Let’s just stop there for a second. Is there anybody in this world who has loved God with all of his heart for even the last five minutes? No. Nobody has loved God with all of his heart since being born, nor have we loved Him with all of our mind or strength. I know that one of the things I will be accountable for on judgment day is the way in which I have failed in the pursuit of the knowledge of God. Many times I have been lazy and slothful and too bored to apply myself to the fullest possible measure of knowing God. I have not loved God with all of my mind [also Matthew 22:37]. If I loved God with all of my mind, there would never be an impure thought in my head. But that’s not the way my head works. Michael W. Smith and Kirkpatrick cry out to God in their beautiful song Never Been Unloved.

I have been unfaithful.I have been unworthy.I have been unrighteous.And I have been unmerciful.

I have been unreachable.I have been unteachable.I have been unwilling.And I have been undesirable.

And sometimes, I have been unwise.I’ve been undone by what I’m unsure of.But because of you, And all that you went through,I know that I have never been unloved.

I have been unbroken.I have been unmended.I have been uneasy.And I’ve been unapproachable.

I’ve been unemotional.I’ve been unexceptional.I’ve been undecided.And I have been unqualified.

Unaware, I have been unfair.I’ve been unfit for blessings from above.But even I can see the sacrifice you made for me.To show that I have never been unloved.

In the site of an all-powerful and holy God, we are all guilty and must face judgment. In fact, we are not just simply guilty. We are regularly and eternally guilty. We deserve eternal punishment. Yet there is a way to gain favor before our righteous God.

May we pray. Oh Father. We acknowledge who you are in contrast to who we are. You are holy; we are lowly. You are loving—indeed love itself; yet we are selfish, spiteful, deceitful, and bent toward revenge. You are the powerful creator of the universe, and we cannot even control our own emotions—our lack of self-discipline weighs on our being. You are the truth; yet we cannot even be honest with ourselves, putting up smokescreens to avoid the truth. You are the just judge; and we think we can ignore your plain commands with impunity. You are faithful; we bend in the wind. You are diligent; we procrastinate. Father, we fall so short. Help us with our condition. We beseech you.

Jonah 3 and devotionals

Jonah 3
Jonah Goes to Nineveh
1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotional:

Deuteronomy 4:1-10

4Obedience Commanded 1 Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you. 3 You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal Peor. The LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, 4 but all of you who held fast to the LORD your God are still alive today.

5 See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. 6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." 7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children."

January 5, 2008

Going Nowhere FastREAD: Deuteronomy 4:1-10

Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen. —Deuteronomy 4:9 About this cover I walked as fast as possible. Worked up quite a sweat, in fact. After about a mile, I broke into a jog and then ran as hard as I could. Finally, after about 25 minutes, I stopped. My heart was pounding. My shirt was soaked. But I had gone nowhere. I had just done 2.5 miles on the treadmill.

After I cooled off, I sat down with my Bible. I was following a reading schedule and the selection for the day was from the book of Numbers. I read some of it slowly and some faster, but I felt at times that I wasn’t getting anywhere—like I was back on the treadmill. Censuses were taken. The long journey was recapped. The tribes were listed and relisted. The next day, I moved into Deuteronomy. More wanderings. More about the Israelites and their land.

But when I got to chapter 4, I was told why all that recapping was important. Moses told the people not to “forget the things your eyes have seen . . . . Teach them to your children” (4:9). The previous reading was not about Israel going nowhere fast. It was about training, about a lesson in using God’s past workings as instruction for future godly living.

All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. So even when it may seem unimportant—keep reading. Sometimes we have to be patient to realize its full purpose. —Dave Branon

Search the Scriptures’ precious store—As a miner digs for ore,Search, and you will surely findTreasures to enrich the mind. —Anon.

God speaks to us through His Word; take time to listen.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

January 5, 2008

The Life of Power to FollowLISTEN: READ:

Jesus answered him, ’Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward’ —John 13:36 About this cover "And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ’Follow Me’ " (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, "Follow Me" (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first "Follow Me" was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18 ).

Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. ". . . He breathed on them, and said to them, ’Receive the Holy Spirit’ " (John 20:22 ). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.

All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to "receive the Holy Spirit." "Receive the Holy Spirit "— the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

TGIF devotional

Failure That Leads to GodlinessOs Hillman

All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader.... - 1 Samuel 22:2

God uses broken things to accomplish His greatest work. When David was anointed to be the next king, he was just a boy, the youngest among all his brothers. Little did he know that the next several years would be years of fleeing from Saul whose successes turned into obsessions as a leader who had fallen from God's anointing. Perhaps David thought, "Why am I living a life as a fugitive?” I am the next king of Israel. Yet, his life was filled with adversity after adversity before he ever fulfilled the ultimate calling God had for him. Others began to hear of David's successes and identify with his plight. But, it wasn't the successful and polished who came to join him. It was "those who were in distress or in debt or discontented" who would be part of his army—and an army it was! His army would become known throughout the world as the greatest ever assembled, not because of their skill, but because of the God behind the army. God turned David's men into "mighty men of valor" (see 1 Chron. 11:10).

God often uses failure to make us useful. When Jesus called the disciples, He did not go out and find the most qualified and successful people. He found the most willing, and He found them in the workplace. He found a fisherman, a tax collector, a farmer, and a doctor.

The Hebrews knew that failure was a part of maturing in God. The Greeks used failure as a reason for disqualification. Sadly, in the Church, we often treat one another in this way. This is not God's way. We need to understand that failing does not make us failures. It makes us experienced. It makes us more prepared to be useful in God's Kingdom—if we have learned from it. And that is the most important ingredient for what God wants in His children.
What about people who have never heard of Christ? The Bible makes it clear that through nature and conscience each person has some knowledge about God and sin for which he is accountable. (Read Romans 1:18-2:16.) Thus, everyone really knows, if he is honest, that God exists. Christianity teaches that one is condemned for continually thumbing his nose at God. But the Bible also teaches that God is fair as well as just. Ultimately only God can judge as only He knows the individual's heart. Another way this question is often phrased is, "What about the innocent natives in Africa?" The truth is, there are no innocent people. The Bible teaches that we are all imperfect, selfish, weak, sinful, and spiritually unclean. (For a more thorough examination of this, see our Christian Cram Course.) On the one hand, we are confident that God will not hold anyone accountable for any knowledge he did not receive. At the same time, the Bible emphatically states that Christ is the only sure way to salvation. Anyone who has heard of the saving grace of Jesus, and rejects it, would be thumbing his nose at God. To reject Jesus is a serious matter. It is tantamount to refusing God's offer of reconcilation to sinful man. As R.C. Sproul points out (book, noted in the resource list), those who have heard and reject Christ face double jeopardy. Thus "religion" without Christ does not redeem people but may add to their ultimate guilt.