Professional Sports Teams have more players than are needed for the game. This is true for every team sport whether ice hockey, base ball, rugby, succor, cricket, basket ball or the grid iron. As many players stand on the side line as those that are playing waiting for the coach to call their names if and when they are needed. Although fully trained, equipped and ready to go, many seldom see action on the field. Some are dismissed entirely. Terms like “benched, sidelined and shelved” are terms that describe such a state.
Are you trained, fully dressed and ready to be deployed but you find yourself sitting on the side line? Do you see your contribution as unwanted and having little value? After being fired from his position at a large church, the pastor lamented, “The Lord knows my heart. He knows my willingness to serve Him. He also knows where I am at and He can come and fetch me any time He chooses!” He was benched from active ministry for several years. During this time the Lord qualified him for a position that out shined his former ministry like the noonday sun out shines the faint flickering of a distant candle.
The Scriptures are replete with examples of people that were sidelined, benched and shelved. After being qualified in the courts of Pharaoh, Moses was set aside for forty years. Abraham and Sara were sidelined well into old age before God used them. David spent multiplied days in the Judean hillside caves hiding for his life. Elijah and John the Baptist wandered through the deserts. And then … and then there is you sitting on your bench … waiting.
Hebrews chapter eleven has an impressive list of names in the Faith Hall of Fame. Their victories electrify us. Moses led Israel across the Red Sea; Joshua witnessed Jericho’s walls fall; Rahab was a safe place for the Hebrew spies; “and what shall I more say … of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again…” These are the heroes in God’s Super Bowl or World Cup of victory. But there are more! The display of winners continues. “Others were tortured not accepting deliverance … others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging; were placed in bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented… they wandered in deserts, mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. These all obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.”
When the enemy assaults by telling you that you are an old dinosaur and that your usefulness is over, benched, sidelined, retrenched or “whatever”, remind him that you are not a fossil yet! And as long as you roam this Earth it will reverberate with the footsteps of one that is influencing it for the Kingdom of God!
We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
WOW These are WordsOfWisdom we can live by!
Are you trained, fully dressed and ready to be deployed but you find yourself sitting on the side line? Do you see your contribution as unwanted and having little value? After being fired from his position at a large church, the pastor lamented, “The Lord knows my heart. He knows my willingness to serve Him. He also knows where I am at and He can come and fetch me any time He chooses!” He was benched from active ministry for several years. During this time the Lord qualified him for a position that out shined his former ministry like the noonday sun out shines the faint flickering of a distant candle.
The Scriptures are replete with examples of people that were sidelined, benched and shelved. After being qualified in the courts of Pharaoh, Moses was set aside for forty years. Abraham and Sara were sidelined well into old age before God used them. David spent multiplied days in the Judean hillside caves hiding for his life. Elijah and John the Baptist wandered through the deserts. And then … and then there is you sitting on your bench … waiting.
Hebrews chapter eleven has an impressive list of names in the Faith Hall of Fame. Their victories electrify us. Moses led Israel across the Red Sea; Joshua witnessed Jericho’s walls fall; Rahab was a safe place for the Hebrew spies; “and what shall I more say … of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again…” These are the heroes in God’s Super Bowl or World Cup of victory. But there are more! The display of winners continues. “Others were tortured not accepting deliverance … others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging; were placed in bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented… they wandered in deserts, mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. These all obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.”
When the enemy assaults by telling you that you are an old dinosaur and that your usefulness is over, benched, sidelined, retrenched or “whatever”, remind him that you are not a fossil yet! And as long as you roam this Earth it will reverberate with the footsteps of one that is influencing it for the Kingdom of God!
We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
WOW These are WordsOfWisdom we can live by!
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