Never Know Who God Will Use

Well, Peggy's family; and my sister, Sandy and her family came down to San Diego for the weekend. We had a great time. The cousins enjoyed playing Wii, watching movies , riding bikes and doing the stuff that cousins do. Larry, Keith and I went surfing. It wasn't the best surfing day, but it was good to get out there. My oldest daughter Aimee turned 14 and we had a great time celebrating her birthday.

Now on to the Book of John...

John 1:24 to 25 " Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. And they asked him, saying, " Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

John was not a main-stream guy. He was baptising people out at the Jordan river, 20 miles northeast of Bethlehem and 60 miles south of Nazareth. He attracted sinners, both Jew and non-Jew. He would baptize them to symbolize their death to sin and their embrace of the Messiah..the One to come. John had some fashion issues....he wore camel hair clothing and eat wild honey and locusts. (see Matthew 3:4). Many people were going to see him and it was causing quite the stir. The power structure of the time, the Pharisees, sent people to inquire about this dude wearing camel's hair, conducting a ancient ritual not commonly practiced at the time. In short they said, "who are you,....... what are you doing ........ and who said you could do it?" Typical of God, using some unsuspecting character, a guy eating bugs, to introduce the most influential human being of all time, Jesus! This introduction marked the start of Christ's three year public ministry and trek to the Cross to save us from our sins. It is the most powerful three year period of any human-being's life. These three years of Jesus' life have been the center point of focus and discussion for thousands of years. And God used unsuspecting John to introduce Jesus.

The Pharisees were people focused on strict "legalistic" interpretation of God's law. Some of the Pharisees would act "holier-than-thou" and some of them would look down on those in sin. (Sound familiar). So they set out to expose John as a "cracked pot" or one who is acting on his own and not under the Authority of God. But they were sadly mistaken. Again, because they were so caught up in who they were, their own righteousness, blinded by ridged traditions and legalism.

In looking at the this story, our judgement of people sometimes blinds us. No doubt we need to be cautious at times. But sometimes we are very judgemental of people not our "type". If someone walked up to you at work, school or church wearing a 70's Leisure Suit, eating Grape Nuts (modern equivalent of camel's hair clothing and eating bugs), would you talk to him or would you call security? It's ok to be cautious, but would we be objective in our discussions with him?

This set of verses encourage me to be more objective to all of those around me, even if they are different. Who knows, God might be using them.

"Dear Lord, please open my eyes to those around. Let me be objective to those you want me to get to know and cautious of those you want me to stay away from. Amen".