(Un)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things

by Steven Furtick

And maybe, just maybe, you are overestimating your shortcomings and underestimating your gifts. Maybe the fact that you don’t currently measure up to the expectations you or other people have isn’t a deal killer. Maybe God wants to do something beyond your abilities, and he is far less intimidated by your failures and limits than you are.

“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5–6, NLT).

An identity that is informed by feelings of inadequacy is a dangerous thing.

Sometimes we do the same thing. We let fear force us into hiding who we are and what we’ve been given. We bury our identities because we are afraid we don’t measure up. We are scared that if we let the real us show, we won’t be good enough. We will mess things up. We won’t qualify. So we refuse to use the gifts God has given us. We decline to become the people God made us to be. And to top it off, we congratulate ourselves on being responsible, humble, and wise. But deep inside, it’s simply fear.

The goal of change is not God’s love. God’s love is the gift that makes the goals possible. When we treat a gift like a goal, both are weakened.

When you discover who God is, you discover who you are. And when you discover who you are, you no longer have to struggle with the insecurity and self-promotion that define much of society. You no longer have to strain to measure up, to qualify.

Knowing God as he is really is paramount to finding out why he made us and who he means for us to be.

God wants to blow the lid off your expectations of yourself. Stop talking about who you are not and what you cannot do, and start listening to what God says about your life. Stop labeling yourself, and start letting God do whatever he wants in and through and with you.

Grace is God’s supernatural power in your life. Usually you can tell fairly quickly if you have grace to grow or to change in a particular area, because things click. You invest time and energy into something, and God breathes on it. It feels natural and fulfilling. The Christian life is not meant to be next to impossible, by the way. Jesus said his yoke is easy and his burden is light (see Matthew 11:30).

He asked God to make up what was lacking.

Romans 8:28 says it this way: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

In God’s kingdom trying to be first is the best way to be last. But learning to serve, to wait, to be humble and secure in God is the path to true success.

True freedom in Christ comes when we realize that without him we are spiritually bankrupt, but in him we have all things.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you already have everything you need to live a confident, fulfilled, productive life.