But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” —1 Samuel 16:7
Throughout Bible times, God forgave and extended great mercy to people who, by our standards, did some pretty despicable things. Without diminishing the gravity of some of the more serious sins on our list, Jesus showed everyone that things like pride, hypocrisy, treatment of the poor, unforgiveness, and self-righteousness were more serious to God than we could have ever imagined. It seems He is rather patient and merciful with people who do bad things due to the fact that they are unwise, immature, or just weak. But to those who continue to deliberately disobey God, attempting to misuse God’s grace and turn it into an excuse for sin, He often exercises His judgment, exposing such deliberate rebellion. We need to be careful about judging spiritual gifts as invalid because of people’s weaknesses and immaturity. God may be more concerned about what He has set out to accomplish in the life of the prophetic vessel than about passing full judgment on that person.
{ PRAYER STARTER }
Holy Spirit, give me the grace to understand that Your purposes are far above what I can see with my human eyes. When I am tempted to discredit a prophetic message from You because of unwise, immature, or weak actions in that prophet’s life, remind me that You often speak through weak vessels.
When compared to the purity and holiness of God,
the differences between the best of us and the
worst of us are not as great as some
of us might like to imagine.
