JUNE 15 "OPPORTUNITY TO THOSE THAT DON'T DESERVE"

Sometimes the people that have been giving the most, been given the most gracious opportunity, fail the worse. Handing over to someone something they have not worked or fought for is normally a recipe for failure. This is the problem with "well to do, good deed programs" that build houses for the poor and hand the houses over to these people for free, no investment, no sacrifice, no cost to them and most will run those houses into the ground, just like Jeroboam runs his Kingdom into the ground. Jeroboam receives one of the sternest rebukes that any King ever receives from God. Jeroboam was given one of the greatest opportunities of any man in the Bible. He is in no way in the lineage of David's family, but yet God, for some reason, when He decides to rip the Kingdom away from the House of David, chooses this man to hand it over to him. You would think that Jeroboam would have taken this opportunity and turned it into a long lasting Dynasty for his family, but he does the opposite. God has always given opportunity to men and allowed them to fail, on their own, without pre-judging them. Many times we count people out without given them an opportunity because we don't want to have to deal with the mess. But God gives "every man" the opportunity to succeed, regardless of his tract record. Sometimes I give opportunity to people that others question, "why did you give him that opportunity, you know he's just going to....."  And most of the time they are right, they fail, they let everyone down, they pull out at the last minute and leave everyone hanging and everyone is quick to say, "I told you so!".  I'm sure there were people who thought, "why in the world is God giving this opportunity to Jeroboam?" And when Jeroboam failed they might have thought they were smarter than God at that point. Well, we know they are not smarter than God and will most certainly know they are not half as Gracious as God either. This is how different God is than us; God gives everyone an opportunity, regardless of their tract record and gives them an opportunity to "prove us wrong, to prove the world wrong" and while they are many that often don't prove us wrong, but only prove us right, there are also those that do rise up and prove us wrong and I'm sure, that those men and those women, are glad that they serve as Gracious a God as we have. If we are going to be Christ like, than we too must sometimes give opportunity to those that others would disagree with because of their tract record. What we don't realize is people know who they are, they know their tract record, they know they are not worthy of any opportunity and when someone with Christ like character reaches out to them and says, "here, here is opportunity, here is a chance..." sometimes, that can be a life changing moment for them!  This is the opportunity God gave Jeroboam, did He let God down? Yes.  Did he prove others right that said he would fail? Yes, but what about other men, that were nobodies that did succeed? For them, God says "it's worth it" and so should you!