Most of us believe that God moves in our life only when we’re worthy. We’ve tied His ability to our goodness. The moment you do that, Satan will defeat you.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.
(2 Cor. 5:20)

An ambassador doesn’t just go over to other nations and proclaim whatever they want. An ambassador must be in touch with their home country so that they can accurately represent them. For instance, every United States ambassador represents the president and the people of the United States of America. They aren’t free to make up their own message. Their job is to accurately represent those who have sent them. As believers, we are supposed to be doing the same thing. We’re supposed to be representing God.

We are supposed to be having the same ministry Jesus had— and God, in Christ, did not impute man’s sins unto them. He went and ate with publicans, harlots, and other sinners the religious system had condemned so much that they wouldn’t have anything to do with God anymore. These are the ones Jesus built relationships with and extended love toward. We are His ambassadors. We are supposed to be ministering His message— saying what He’s told us to say in His Word.

Most Christians today aren’t proclaiming that message. They’ve adopted a religious system that has been entrenched for hundreds of years. They’re saying, “God is angry. If you don’t do this and that, He’s going to pour out His wrath on you. If you don’t do these things, God won’t answer your prayer. If you aren’t holy, God won’t move!” And they’re imputing men’s sins unto them. Satan is really using that to keep people beaten down and discouraged.

I recently received an email from one of our partners thanking me. This couple had been listening to me for five years, but recently the husband died of a blood clot in the middle of the night. The wife wrote to me, saying, “Because I’ve been listening to you, I knew what to do.” She raised him from the dead. Then he got up, went to the bathroom, and went back to bed. Everything was fine, and she was praising God that she knew what to do according to the Word.

Faith Works by Love
Let’s say that you were attending one of my meetings when someone came forward and fell over dead. If I said, “We’re going to pray for this person, and I believe God is going to raise them from the dead,” you’d probably say, “Go for it, brother!” and eagerly join me up front because you’d want to see it. You’d think, This is awesome! I’ll have a great story to tell everybody else. You’d be excited until I said, “All right, I want you to pray for the person.” Then, all of a sudden, instead of excitement and faith, fear would hit you. Do you know why? That fear wouldn’t hit from doubting God’s ability but from doubting God’s willingness to use His ability through you because you know you aren’t worthy.

Most of us believe that God moves in our life only when we’re worthy. We’ve tied His ability to our goodness. The moment you do that, Satan will defeat you because your own heart will condemn you and let you know that you don’t deserve it. But that’s not the message Jesus brought. He wasn’t imputing man’s sins unto them. He told us to preach a message that tells people, “The war is over. God isn’t mad anymore!”

Now, this doesn’t mean that it’s all up to God. If it were, then you would receive because God is a good God. He has nothing but good things in store for you. However, you must believe to receive. You don’t have to be holy and do everything just right, but you do have to believe. If you feel so unworthy and that you’ve messed up so badly that God doesn’t love you, that’s unbelief. That is not the message of the Gospel, and it’s the very thing that’s keeping your faith from working.

Again, faith works by love (see Gal. 5:6). If you understood how much God loved you—that He carries your picture around in His wallet, that He isn’t angry, disappointed, or ashamed of you, and that He’s proud of you—your faith would go through the roof. You’d say, “Any God who could love me and overlook all the stupid things I’ve done is an awesome God. If He’ll do that, He’ll do anything!”