Election and Trust

Election and Trust

Paul was a specially chosen instrument in God’s hand. He was entrusted with indescribably much, also very many souls during his time, and in later years, all the upright ones who have confidently taken his word to heart!

Of course there were good and weighty reasons for that! God did not choose him at random!

Whom should God choose for something that was so inexpressibly valuable? Whom should He entrust with so unspeakably much?

Nearly anyone could figure it out, if he was keenly interested in the question! Paul himself states it in very simple terms in 1 Timothy 1:12: “Because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry . . . .”

Here there is a very important point to take note of: namely, that what God means by being faithful is much more than what people usually mean by it. It means absolute faithfulness in all possible circumstances—even to extreme limits—in the least as well as in the most important things, even if it is ever so embarrassing.

God sees beforehand how each individual will react in all of life’s situations and circumstances.

Paul says in the same verse (12) that God strengthened him and also that the glorious gospel of the blessed God was committed to his trust (v. 11) and that the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant toward him, with faith and love. V. 14.

It is quite simply like this: exceedingly great grace, a great fullness, and great trust are only bestowed on people who demonstrate exceedingly great faithfulness in everything! They are given only to those who endure unusually great sufferings, adversities and contradictions of various kinds and for whom this is a matter of course, without failing and drawing back in the least.

It is especially significant what God said to Paul when He called him so radically: “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Acts 9:16.

One main condition for being entrusted with much by God is and remains that we have thoroughly acknowledged our utter incompetence and folly, so that we have become and continue to be grounded in humility, with the result that we never have the least exalted thoughts about ourselves regardless of how much we are used by God and how highly we are esteemed and praised by people.

How badly we conducted ourselves and how many big sins we committed and how great an opponent we were previously is not of any decisive significance. God forgives endlessly.

It is only a question of how radically we are converted and how we conduct ourselves in every situation after we have been converted and how God judges us as to how we want to conduct ourselves in the future, even until the very end.

There are many degrees of trust, measured precisely according to the degree of humility and faithfulness.

Being endowed with talents, human education, oratorical skills, etc., are in themselves not a condition for gaining trust in the kingdom of God.

If he is humble and faithful in all things, every lowly person can be entrusted with much! Therefore have great faith in God!

There is something that is called colorfast clothing. This means that it can be washed in very hot water, even boiled and using strong cleaning agents, and the colors will neither fade nor change.

This can be used as an example of a “colorfast” brother or a “colorfast” man of God and fellow worker who can be trusted. He may be subjected to anything without being defiled in the least by anything at all!

Seeing that such is the case, it is obvious that God does not fail to use such people. That would be an act of negligence by God if He did not take advantage of the opportunity to make use of them. These are the kind of people God is looking for the most!

In Ezekiel 22:30 it is written that God sought for a man who would stand in the gap, but He found no one. And in Isaiah 59:16 it is written that there was no man, and He wondered that there was no intercessor!

This testifies to the fact that when you have to suffer more than usual, when you risk all kinds of things, most people fail; they follow the old way of thinking, sparing themselves.

Put into everyday language: they don’t want to have an unpleasant job for low pay and much reproach.

How could the all-wise God trust such people with many of His treasures and a particularly responsible ministry?!

According to this it is not fitting to say that one is far too lowly to be entrusted with such great things. It is far more fitting to say that one is not sufficiently humble, and also not sufficiently faithful. However, it is possible to be converted from this, to an unlimited extent! Then why not do it?