Thursday, December 15, 2005
They are the busiest people I know at Christmastime - the men and women in those brown trucks that fly through our streets this time of year. The UPS people - along with countless Post Office carriers - are carrying so many packages to so many places in such a short time! They must sleep well (but not much) this time of year. As important as their service is, we don't make a big deal of the deliverer when he comes to the door. "Oh, delivery person, you are the greatest! What a guy! You are awesome, dude!" Or "dudette," as the case may be. No, we know he didn't make the gift. She didn't buy the gift. They only delivered the gift!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Your Life Can Really Deliver."
If you belong to Jesus, you've got a great assignment from Him - to be His "UPS" man or woman. In other words, He's asking you to be His delivery person - to deliver to people gifts from Him. Which means that no matter how tough your life is right now, no matter how useless or unimportant you may feel sometimes, God has something very important for you to do.
It's the same mission He gave the great Apostle Paul. He said in Romans 1:11, our word for today from the Word of God, that he longed to be with the Roman believers "so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong." He just kept delivering gifts from God to people: a word of encouragement, a word of comfort, a challenge to be what God had called them to be - the Gospel of Jesus, which has the power to change someone's life and someone's eternity.
Sometimes people make a big deal over us because of some good thing we did. And we can start thinking, "You know, I really am pretty good at this. I really am important." That makes no more sense than the delivery person taking credit for the gift they're bringing. They didn't make it, they didn't provide it - they just delivered it! That's all we do. But God allows us to enrich people's lives every day if we'll faithfully look for opportunities to deliver His love to someone. Scripture says, "You will not take pride in one man against another ... What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" ( 1 Corinthians 4:6-7).
The good news is that a lot of people who think they're second-string Christians, watching God's varsity play the game, don't realize who they really are. God says to every one of His children, "You are Christ's ambassador" ( 2 Corinthians 5:20). It goes with having Jesus. You don't have to be some spiritual superstar or charismatic personality. You are, in God's words, "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" ( Ephesians 2:10).
If you've got Jesus, then you've got His love in you to deliver to people around you. You've got His joy, you've got His encouragement, His comfort, His eternal life and the way to have that eternal life. He's given you His uniform. He's put in your hands much-needed gifts for the people in your personal world.
Don't sit in your driveway with a truckload of gifts that God has given you to deliver. It's not about what you have to give people. It's about what He has to give them. But He gives His gifts through human messengers - like you. Every new morning say, "Lord, help me deliver some love from You to some people today, and help me see the people who need it." He makes the gift, He provides the gift - you just deliver it. In so doing, you'll make each person richer. Oh, and you'll make you richer, too.