And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee. And he said, I will tarry until thou come again. Judges 6: 17-18 KJV
Text: Judges 6: 11- 18
There are many reasons why Gideon was not the success he had the potential to be. One is very obvious and I have already mentioned it but there are a few other reasons.
Gideon was not the success he had the potential to be because
- He was afraid. What does this mean? If you entertain fear you cannot express faith. There are many people today who are going about the world, they look bold, they look confident and in control but deep down they are fearful and they lack confidence. I used to be like that; I used to dress well, I used to be brash but really deep down I was a little bit nervous, anxious and empty inside. There are many like that. If you are deeply fearful you cannot express faith and you cannot succeed.
- Gideon didn’t know who he was. What did he say? He said “I am the least in my father’s house”. A man can be one of 4 people;
- Who the world has constrained you to be. A lot of the time we are constrained by the world. The bible says that some men are eunuchs because they have been made so by the world. Some men made themselves eunuchs while some are so because they perceived they were born that way. A lot of us have been put in a certain compartment, in a certain place by the world. The problem with most of us is that we chose to remain there. There are of us who people have told us that this is who we are and we have accepted this
- A man is who he thinks he is. This time around it is Gideon saying to himself that he is the least in his father’s house and his father’s family is the least in the tribe of Manasseh. That is what he told himself; it is he that put himself in that situation. A lot of us think in our mind who we think we are. There are some people that can’t look you in the eye, some people that are always bending down, because they have looked at themselves and said of themselves “I can never ever be a success”. It is all really in your mind, whether you will be a success or not is a choice that we make. I have never read anywhere in the bible where a person is referred to as ugly. God does not create an ugly person, what He does is to create a person suited to the purpose each will carry out in life. So you are what you say to yourself that you are.
- A man is who people say he is. That is why Jesus spoke to His disciples and asked ‘what do men say that I am?” A lot of people have become what people say they are. When somebody says to you that this is what you are, you go back thinking in your mind that the person must be right and you are possibly wrong.
- A man is who God says he is, whom God has created him to be. In Judges 6: 12 the Lord said to Gideon that he is a mighty man of valour, this is who God has created him to be.
It means therefore ladies and gentlemen that if you don’t know God you cannot be who you are. No matter how rich or successful you think you are, if you do not know God you cannot truly know who you are. You just go through life thinking that this is who you are but you don’t really know WHO you are. There are many rich people around the world, rich or wealthy by privilege or opportunity, by virtue of their birth, or God working in their direction but at the end of the day every worldly thing they have accounts to nothing because they don’t really know who they are.
