President’s Message, March 2004

“We’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel!” said the man over the telephone as he tried to explain the financial dilemma of his church. “Whose barrel?” he was asked. “Surely not God’s, for there isn’t any bottom in His barrel!”

Man has always had a tendency to measure his potential by his own balance sheet. He adds up how much the task requires, then adds up his resources, and often comes up short - especially in God’s work. This is because God never gave a plan to man that looked reasonable from the human viewpoint – and He did this for a logical reason. The human heart seems to thrive on credit, or praise. If God furnished man with everything in advance to accomplish His work, he would take the credit for its accomplishment.

God arranged His work so man has to depend on Him for its success. This is the only way He can direct man’s attention away from this world and himself. Man cannot lift himself by his bootstraps although at times he tries. His aspirations will never be any higher than his narrow, limited concept, unless he directs his thoughts upward to God and learns to think in the context of heaven. Therefore, God’s plans for man have always been those of a partnership – a partnership in which there are no limits.

Traveling through Canada one sees many business signs with the abbreviation “Ltd.” Following the firm name, which means that it is a limited company. In God’s firm it is God and Man, Unlimited.

A man’s potential cannot be measured by the size or quantity of his resources or talent, but by his willingness to use it as God directs. “When the Lord gives a work to be done, let not men stop to inquire into the reasonableness of the command or the probable result of their efforts to obey. The supply in their hands may seem to fall short of the need to be filled: but in the hands of the Lord, it will prove more than sufficient.” Prophets and Kings, page 243.

What is a man’s potential? It can only be measured by the yardstick of heaven. In the hands of God, a lowly fisherman becomes an evangelist and converts about three thousand in one day! A doctor, David Livingstone, who might have enjoyed his profession in the comfort of England, becomes a missionary and braves the jungles and fevers of Africa – and gives his life for the people he loves. What is a man’s potential? It is unlimited in the hands of God.