Jeremiah 1:8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
Have you ever been asked to do something you could not do? Does God ever ask you to do something you cannot do? I think our first answer is no. God would never ask us to do something we cannot do. Yet, God has shown Himself to do that many times. In fact, most of the people God commissions in the Bible respond by saying, “God, I can’t do it.” Moses said, “Who am I?” Later on, Jeremiah said, “God, I am a child.”
In response to each of these men, and many other ladies and men, God responds by bringing the focus on Himself and not on the person who is being commissioned. You see, God asks you to do things you cannot do, but God will never ask you to do something that He cannot do. That means that whenever you are obeying God you need God’s resources to do God’s will. That is what success is, using God’s resources to obey God’s will.
When God commissioned Jeremiah to give an unpalatable message to an unheeding people, Jeremiah said, “God, I cannot. I am a child.” God responds by saying, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.” Then God says, “I have put my words in thy mouth.” So, it was Jeremiah’s mouth, but it was God’s words. What Jeremiah did was simply in response to God’s command and in supply of God’s power.
God says, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee, and ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” So, God formed Jeremiah, God knew Jeremiah, God sanctified or set apart Jeremiah for a task, and God ordained Jeremiah. He sent him on his way to accomplish His purpose.
Now, you are not a prophet, but God made you, God knows you, God sanctified you, and God ordained you if you belong to Him. If God formed you, it was for an intent. If God made you, it is with His provision. You don’t have to make up what you are going to do. “It is My words, your mouth,” God says. Someone says, “How am I going to do what God has told me to do?” The truth is that many times you cannot, but that is when the miracles begin, when God supplies His people to do His will.
So, what is success? Success is using God’s resources to obey God’s command. Courage comes from giving God the world He already made and the future He already owns.