You must determine to become nothing and nobody if you ever want to be the person God intends you to be. A slave of Christ can hold no possessions in this world (Luke 14:33). You might live in a house, drive a car, and even make use of a few niceties, but none of them are yours because they must all be meaningless to you. Nothing in this world compares to the greatest treasure of them all — the treasure of knowing and serving Jesus (Philippians 3:8).
We must give up everything to follow Him, and we do it with joy because there is nothing worth anything to us except for Jesus (Matthew 13:44-46). It is our duty to follow wherever He leads, and do whatever He commands (John 12:26). We are nothing because He is everything (Colossians 3:11).
After fifty-seven years, I know at last who I want to be when I grow up. I want to be nothing and nobody, just a man determined to be whoever Jesus tells him to be. There was a time when I had grand plans to do great things, great things that even included God. But they were foolish and ignorant dreams of a foolish and ignorant child. If our dreams include God, then we’ve already misplaced the plot. God is uncontainable and thus He can’t be included in anything (Acts 17:24-25). He is, and there is nothing else. By His grace, He allows us to be part of His plans, but it’s never the other way around (Isaiah 55:8-9).
This life is not about filling it with as much as possible but about letting go and emptying ourselves of everything. God can’t use people full of attachments to this world (1 John 2:15-17). He needs empty vessels He can fill with His Spirit, willing souls to do His work (2 Timothy 2:21). If you are serious about living your best life now, you must focus on the life to come. Nothing about God’s plan is about now; it’s all about eternity (2 Corinthians 4:18). Everything you acquire and experience is so temporary as to not matter at all (James 4:14). The only things that matter in this life are those things you do for Christ that have implications in the next life (Matthew 6:19-20).
No matter what you accomplish in this life, it all counts for nothing. Whoever you become in this life ends with you being a nobody. One hundred years from now, no one is going to remember you. The odds are that no one will even have heard of you. The uncomfortable truth is you are nothing and nobody, and that’s not a bad thing. Recognizing this fact means you have come to the place where Jesus can best use you. Remember, God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). For whatever reason, He does not often choose to use the wealthy and influential to spread His Word. He uses the meek and those of no importance (James 2:5).
We have not yet surrendered to the will of God until we empty ourselves of our desire to do something and be someone (Luke 9:23). It’s only when we accept and even rejoice in the fact that we are nothing and nobody that God will use us for His glory (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5), so why are we pretending that we can? Our will is selfish, incomplete, and ill-conceived. His will is perfect, wise, and glorious. Which plan would you rather pursue? This world is not our home, and this life is not our own (Hebrews 13:14; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Brothers and sisters, it’s time to be who God created you to be. It’s time to be nothing and nobody, because those are the people God will use to change the world to the glory of our King.