The Church has a problem. A big one. It is what has caused respect for Christianity to diminish over the past decades. It is what prevents the Church from attracting new members.

The problem is us.

Our need for status, for recognition, means that we do not glorify God by our lives. We want the glory for ourselves. God cannot use people like this. We have to be humbled, broken, made to depend on God alone.

Our need for control means we come up with agendas, methodologies, plans, formulae, meetings and schedules. This, effectively, prevents God from expressing His own plans through us.

Someone said that he... "can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing." That was Jesus in John 5:19.

If this is true for the Son of God, how much more true is it for us?

God has given those of us who believe the Holy Spirit. Do a Bible study. Read what titles the Holy Spirit is given. Read what His purpose is in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is the most powerful being in the Universe, yet there is something that can stop Him. Our own will. Our freedom to choose. God will never oppose that.

This is why we must offer our lives as a living sacrifice; we place every aspect of our lives at God's disposal, giving Him total authority to do with us as He pleases.

This is why we must die to self; our opinions, plans, ambitions, assumptions, education, knowledge, wisdom, status, wealth, and anything else you can think to add on the list, are less than dust and ashes. They have no value to God at all, so they should have no value to us.

What God wants is a people totally available to Him, submitted to His will, obedient to His instruction. With such a people, God can work miracles. He can transform the Church and anyone that comes into contact with it.

We are nothing. But God loves us so much, Christ died for us.

We are nothing. But God wants to give us everything we need; to guide us, provide for us, train us.

We are nothing. But God wants us to share in the love, joy and peace that come from Him and are greater than anything found in the world.

We are nothing. But to God, we are everything.

That is the only fact of importance.

So, forget your title, your education, your accomplishments. If they are anything, they are the result of what God has given you, so why should you take credit for them?

Learn to abandon yourself to the will of God, to accept every situation as a gift from Him, and to expect to see God use it to our edification and His glory.