Nature abhors a vacuum, says the scientist; so does God, says the Bible. When the invited ones failed to show up for the banquet, the host said to his servants, “Go out into the highways … and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). God’s will is, “My house will be filled.” God’s way is, “If the people don’t respond, get others.” When Israel would not respond to Christ’s message, God turned to the Gentiles and gave them the “vineyard that the Israelites violated.” If John Doe does not respond to the gospel invitation, Jane Doe will; God’s house must be “filled.” If Judas will not become an apostle, Saul of Tarsus will. If the church at Ephesus grows lukewarm and cold and leaves its first love, Christ will remove the light from it and give it to another church that will manifest it (Revelation 2:5).
I have often been guilty of the sin of indispensability. I have treated potential converts as converts, church leaders as indispensable leaders, friends as indispensable friends. In God’s eyes there are no indispensable people. All are expendable. I cannot claim such a privileged position with God that He cannot afford to bypass me in the ongoing of His work. I must at all times prove to Him that I am not castaway material (1 Corinthians 9:27). I must never abandon the conditions on which fruitful servantship rests, and never give myself the luxury of feeling that God’s work will die when I die. God abhors that kind of a vacuum, and He will quickly fill it with someone else. My joy in all this is that God’s purpose will never fall short: “He will not fail or be discouraged until He brings justice to victory” (Isaiah 42:4, author’s trans.; cf. Matthew 12:20). His victory is my rest, and His unfailing purpose my delight.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
Daily with the King 