You know, I'm beginning to see that there's a difference between saying "I want to make a difference in the world for God!" and saying "I would love for God to use me to be His hands and feet on this earth."
When we say "I want to make a difference for God," who are we subconsciously--even if it's just a little bit--crediting the work to? We are crediting ourselves. We're saying, "I will make a difference in the world for God. I will do it--it will be my work that I choose to give to Him."
And when we say "for God," we treat Him like a charity. We are act as if we are oh-so-nobly choosing to donate our time, money, and effort to Him, because He could not carry out His purposes without a certain amount of cooperation or charity on our part. We fail to realize that the only One who makes a difference in the world is God!
If we aren't treating Him like a charity, we're treating Him like a lender. We say, "I owe Jesus my everything," and so we try to pay Him back, do it because we owe it to Him, or make Him happy--even though we "realize" we never could pay Him back at all, even though we "realize" that we can't earn his love.
However, when we say that "I would love for God to use me to be His hands and feet on this earth," we gain a new perspective. Our service is not our own choice, but God's choice; it is not our work at all, but His work. We are unable to take credit for what someone else does--so if you see yourself as God's hands and feet, then it is not you doing the work at all, but God, and you cannot take credit for it. We also see God as the all-powerful, fully-self-sufficient Being that He is. We realize that He does not need our cooperation to do His will, but rather choses us. We could even take this a step further and say that God uses us whether we are willing or not! And finally, our relationship with God takes on a new dimension. Instead of owing Jesus something, we are both humbled and honored to follow Him.
There's also a difference in the work perspective of each phrase. For example, when Mother Teresa was holding dying babies in Calcutta, do you think that she was saying to herself "I'm making a difference in the world for God"? Probably not. Even if she was making a difference, that is not the point. Her attitude was not "Let me do the most productive things I can to make as big a difference as possible"--if that had been her attitude, she wouldn't have been holding babies that were going to die anyway! But do you think that she was saying "God is using me as His loving arms, and I am honored"? If she wasn't, she should have been!
So, what are you going to do? Are you going to be the one to make a difference? Or are you going to leave it up to the One who can work through you to make His difference?
