Your Voice Matters

God didn’t create you to be an echo; He created you to be a voice! You’re the only one who can carry your voice—no one else has it. You are authentic, and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. There’s no one like you on the planet. No one can have the relationship that God created for you and Him alone. No one can share His secret place with you. In Him, you have everything you need. What God wants to do is to intensify your hunger for Him and turn your switch from thinking you’re satisfied to making you realize you’re very unsatisfied. This is why identity is so important because if we don’t know who we are, we won’t know that we can approach Him at all.

God has created a catch-and-release system and wants His sons and daughters to be the actual bait to draw the lost in to Him. Jesus told His disciples they were going to become fishers of men. What we often don’t understand is that when we become sold-out for Jesus, we become the bait. See, no one gets talked into Christianity. There’s something about our walk with Jesus that makes Christianity attractive. Our lives become so attractive that people have to have what we have.

Take, for instance, Paul and Silas. They are imprisoned and in chains among other prisoners. At midnight, they can’t help but bubble up a symphony of praise to the God that they serve. And they’re overwhelmed with gladness. They’re in shackles, facing horrible persecution, yet they’re lifting up their voices in a moment of worship to their God Who is so powerful that the whole prison was shaken. They didn’t let their trial keep them down. They lifted up praises to God, and God didn’t just break the shackles off of them, but off the prisoners all around them.

How attractive is it for all to see when a Christian responds counter-intuitively to a trial? It’s so powerful when we can go through hardship, and instead of masking our internal fluster with a smile on our face, we have actual joy on our faces coming from a heart that has diligently sought Him. This is coming from a place of being a son or daughter who is going after Him in the secret place when no one else knows. We ought to be so in love with Jesus that the trial cannot take away our joy. We emanate the glory of God in the midst of a trial when our only dependency is on Him.

Why does Jesus say in Matthew 16 that, unless a man denies himself, picks up his cross, and follows Me, He cannot be My disciple? Because Jesus is not looking for members only, but for those who want to be like their Master. Jesus’ definition of discipleship is different from ours: First, you have to die. You have to give everything up. You have to admit that you’re an utter failure unto yourself, and there’s no possible way for you to live this life by yourself.

It doesn’t matter how good of a preacher I am. If I spend more time on my feet than I do on my knees, then I’m no good. When I read the Bible, it must be read through the lens of righteousness. If I don’t read every page through the lens of righteousness, I will be deceived. I have to look at every page as one who is right with God—through the blood of Jesus and what He paid a price for me to become. That’s why Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 (NKJV): “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” That’s our priority. Anything else is an idol. What’s an idol? Anything that speaks to you louder than the finished work of Calvary.

The Father has made you to be an imitator of God—His child, walking just like Jesus walked. You have this hope in Him. The same Holy Spirit Who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is in you. You carry His love into this world that only knows how to love itself. You bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. You keep no record of wrongs; you always hope for the best. You have been given the only love that never fails. God’s love is the bait that you become, and He catches the hungry through you. His undeserved kindness, forgiveness, and mercy have become the net that will never break. He has made you a fisher of men.

Today, believe these truths and let Him use your life. Don’t you think it’s time? If not now, then when? Shine like Him; somebody’s watching. God is proud of you. He’s not mad. He’s excited for you to finally believe. He wants to jumpstart your heart so that you can live with passion again. So come to Jesus and let everything you do and say be unto Him and His glory!

Todd White