A sense of inadequacy, insecurity, and inferiority, because of our background, experiences, and various qualities and things we feel we lack is prevalent among too many believers. Last time, we looked at how Jeremiah fell victim to this sense of inadequacy. Another prophet, Amos, was not brought up in a court. He didn’t have the advantages of a fine education as, for instance, Ezekiel or Daniel had. Nor did he have the privileges of wealth. Amos was called to be a prophet when he was a sheepherder and a gatherer of sycamore fruit! The sycamore fruit is very much like a fig and is hard and inedible unless when it is ripening, somebody squeezes it to make it edible. And so, the gatherer of the sycamore fruit spent his time out among the trees squeezing fruit. This is a very unlikely background from which to call a prophet, but God called Amos and sent him from Judea, where he had been ministering, up to the northern kingdom of Israel. He was a southerner going north, and he wasn’t very welcome! Those in Israel listened to Amos condemn them for their sin, and they said, “We don’t like what you say. If you want to prophesy, why don’t you go back home and preach? There is sin there!” Amaziah told him, “O you seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread and there do your prophesying! But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence” (Amos 7:12-13). Amos preached a message where it could count the most—in the king’s hearing. He proclaimed his message in Bethel, the capital of the northern kingdom, and in the king’s palace. The king and his court rejected the message, which would be enough to give any man an inferiority complex. Amos recognized that he did not have the training to be a prophet. Samuel, called by God to be a minister to Israel, had established a school of the prophets where he and his successors trained young men. These students were called the “sons of the prophets,” and they were being prepared by the man of God for a ministry in the truth of God. Because he had not attended that school of the prophets, Amos sensed that he did not have the necessary educational background that would equip him to be a prophet. And when Amaziah said to Amos, “If you want to preach, go down to Judah where you came from,” Amos’ reply was, “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and a nipper of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock and the Lord said to me, ‘Go prophesy to My people Israel.’ And now hear the word of the Lord; you are saying, ‘You shall not prophesy against Israel nor shall you preach against the house of Isaac” (Amos 7:14-16). Notice, Amos might well have pleaded lack of preparation, lack of formal training in the things of God, and have been silent because of this lack of preparation and training. But a degree from a school is no prerequisite to effectiveness as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ! No school can give a man spiritual gifts. It may equip a man to use the gifts that God has given to him, but any individual who is sensitive to the Spirit of God and who is diligent and faithful in his own study of God’s Word can be effective as a witness for Christ. Some of the most effective witnesses and servants of the Lord have never set foot on a campus for formal training for the ministry. My brother, Ted, who founded Pioneers along with his wife, Peggy, is a classic example of this. When God laid on his heart to establish a mission organization to reach the unreached people-groups of the earth, he did not receive much encouragement from a number of mission leaders. He was told: “You have no formal Bible training! You have no experience in missions; etc.” But like Amos, instead of excusing himself from God’s call in his life, pleading inadequacy or inferiority with words such as: “I have had no formal Bible training, no formal schooling, and I’m not a son of a pastor,” Ted listened to God and obeyed Him and pursued His call upon his life by faith! Today, we must be careful not to ask the Lord to excuse us from discharging that which the Apostle Paul placed upon all believers—to be ambassadors for Christ—on the basis of feeling inferior and inadequate simply because we don’t feel prepared. Amos didn’t go because he felt prepared. He didn’t feel prepared, and he wasn’t prepared! But Amos went because God told him to go. If a child of God considers only his own formal schooling and training in the things of the Scripture, he will succumb to this feeling of insecurity, inferiority, and inadequacy; and he will convince himself that his lack of schooling exempts him from fulfilling the Great Commission, “Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:19-20). Don’t let ANYTHING such as a sense of inadequacy, insecurity, or inferiority ever stand in the way of your fulfilling God’s call and plan for your life, but listen to God, obey God, and step out by faith. MORE TOMORROW! STAY TUNED!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 21:29:43 +0000