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Pastor's Corner
Pastor Paul Strang
“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him[Gideon], and said unto him, ‘The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.’ … And the Lord looked upon him, and said, ‘Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Mideanites: have I not sent thee?’” —Judges 6:12, 14 The Lord picks the most unlikely people. We don’t have to look very far to find evidence. I don’t know of the number of pastor friends and acquaintances I have—some internationally famous, who had no intention of entering the ministry. Most had their futures all planned out until God convinced them that He had other plans. I, too, knew I couldn’t be a pastor. I was very talkative as a young child, but I was so shy that I couldn’t speak before a group, and usually clammed up before even a couple friends. In high school, my pastor and great-uncle, Rev. Archie Boyd, preached several sermons about entering the ministry. I knew they were aimed straight at me, but I knew that I couldn’t respond. I stayed out of the ministry for 20 years until God finally got it through to me that if He called me, He would make me able as I followed Him. In fact, I was to learn that God specialized in the impossible. He calls the unlikely to do the impossible—with Him. When God spoke to Gideon through His angel, Gideon was hiding from the Mideanites, wearing himself out threshing wheat in the bottom of a valley instead of on a hill where the wind could blow the chaff away. God called this frightened young man a “mighty man of valor.” Gideon offered many excuses why he couldn’t deliver Israel, but God kept reminding him, “I’ll be with you.” That’s really all Gideon needed. When God told Moses that He would deliver the children of Israel through him, Moses tried to refuse, “But who am I?” God’s answer was the same as he gave Gideon and He gives us, “I’ll be with you.” Translation: “It doesn’t matter who you are as long as you obey me, because I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” God can do great things through us because He is with us. It matters little who we think we are or what we think we can do. It matters what we believe God can do. God is the god of the impossible. He only asks us to do what we can’t do. Because He wants to help us and if we could do it by ourselves, we wouldn’t need Him. We wouldn’t need to walk by faith—the only way to please Him. Even more than we get pleasure in our children’s accomplishments, especially when they do something they didn’t think they could, God gets great pleasure in seeing us accomplish great things. When you’re ready to see the impossible, stop refusing God, stop putting out fleeces, stop saying you can’t, just obey. “All things are possible to him who believes.” Paul
Pastor Paul Strang Biography (<< click here) |
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