You Are Relevant :: By John Lysaught

You Are Relevant

Before I begin, I must apologize and clarify my stance in my previous article, “What’s the Deal.” As some of you called me out, I do know God is the judge of other’s hearts, not me; and I neglected to impart that to you all in my writing. I cannot judge other’s hearts or stance with God – only God can. I have a great big heart for all of you, and for those who are lost and don’t know Christ. Thank you.

Sometimes we don’t feel important in the grand scheme of life and eternity. We are though. You’re important and so am I. We’re each a piece of the puzzle in God’s eternal plan. We aren’t pushed to the sidelines to watch life pass by. God has a plan for each one of us.

I think we’ve all been in a place where we didn’t feel relevant. We didn’t believe we mattered to God or to others. I’m bipolar and have been in this place many times, so much that I was hospitalized twice; I felt so worthless to God and others that I was on the verge of suicide. There are many that face similar trials because of situations they find themselves in. It could be a broken relationship with a spouse, bullying at school or online, being mentally ill, etc.

This is one of Satan’s ploys. He wants us to feel worthless and irrelevant. If he can convince us we aren’t relevant, then we can slip into his grasp and lose our grip on Christ. Satan lies when he tells us we are unimportant; and yet, each person was created by God, and He knew us even before we were in our mother’s womb. To say we are unimportant would be to say God made a mistake. Don’t believe this lie.

When we feel we aren’t important we can get depressed or distraught. We feel an emptiness in our hearts and a sense of desperation or hopelessness. Some will turn away from God to fill this void with substances or false idols, or whatever; but what is needed is prayer to have Jesus’ strength to avoid these feelings of being lost and unimportant.

We are in a spiritual battle with Satan and his minions, and the world. We are surrounded by evil and negativity from a society that disparages us as much as possible. We need to hold fast to Jesus and keep our chins up to face the adversity set before us by the Devil.

Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

We are in a battle. We are fighting evil as we live in this world. We must hold fast to our faith and hope in Jesus in order to fight and survive. Yes, Jesus defeated death when He rose from the dead, but we still face evil until His soon return to snatch us up to be with Him.

As we live in this world, we must always be on guard lest we begin to believe the lie that we’re irrelevant to the Kingdom of God. This is part of the battle we face in addition to all the other schemes of Satan. Remember, Satan wants to destroy us. He wants to come between us and our relationship with Jesus. Not in part but in whole. If Satan can drive a wedge between us and our Lord and Savior, then it is easier for him to keep us from Christ.

Psalm 27:1 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

No matter what adversity we may face, we need not fear—for He is our strength. He isn’t our strength only sometimes; this does not say that. He IS our strength. This tells us that, regardless of what we are facing, God is with us all the time. We can face the enemy with the surety of God being with us for strength to endure and defeat Satan.

We are relevant to the Kingdom of God because God created each one of us for a purpose.

Jeremiah 29:11, states, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

I’ve forgotten this more than a few times. Because I battle the chemical imbalance in my brain, I tend to bounce around the emotional scale, but spend most of my time in some level of depression.

Satan tries to take advantage of me when depressed. He tries to drag me down even more. I fight this daily, and in those times that I do let my guard down, I feel worthless to God and to others. I know it isn’t true; but when I fall into that trap, it takes a lot of prayer and fortitude to climb back out.

Satan uses each of our weaknesses to drag us down. When this happens, we must fight Satan. We need to keep the armor of God on us at all times. We may feel tired or worn out from battle and just want a rest, but we must stand firm. It’s those times when we rest that our guards are left down, and Satan will attack us with full force.

In our trials and tribulations in life, we need to anticipate Satan’s attacks on us. If we keep in mind that Satan will do this, we will be better equipped to face him. This is easier said than done sometimes, but knowing he will attack us helps us to be better mentally prepared for his ambushes.

When we know we are important and relevant to God and His Kingdom, we will be emboldened to do His will for Him. God gave us each unique gifts to help others and to spread His love to each other. We can use our gifts to show the light of Christ through us to those who don’t know Christ.

I have found in my ever-evolving walk with Jesus how important it is to show the love of Him to others. Whether in word or deed, we need to use our gifts to show others the light they can have as well so they can be with us in Heaven. Do I fail at this? Of course. I’m just a sin-natured man, but I pray that I can be a light to the world regardless.

We may get down on ourselves sometimes, and we may feel irrelevant in this world, but we are not. We are so important to the Kingdom of God. God loves us so much because of this that He gave His Son as the sacrifice for our sins. If we weren’t important, each and every one of us, then He wouldn’t have done so. Remember this in those moments when you feel so low that you can’t see beyond the minute or day. Remember that you are loved by Him and are important enough to Him that He created you for a purpose.

God bless.

johnflysaught@gmail.com