Jeremiah 13:7
“Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.”
It is often said that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. What one looks at as no good, another will look at as something valuable. The value of something is only determined by the eye of the one who knows what they can do with it.
I love looking at old cars that seem to be rundown and ready for the junk heap. The right person can get that car and completely remodel it into something very valuable. In the wrong hands that car becomes a piece of metal in the scrap yard, but in the right hands that car becomes a precious commodity that will sit in someone’s garage and help pay the bills of the one who remodeled it.
In Jeremiah 13, God told Jeremiah to get a linen girdle and bury it in the Earth. After many days of being buried in the Earth, God told Jeremiah to go dig up the girdle. When Jeremiah dug it up, God tells us that Jeremiah’s perceived that the girdle was “profitable for nothing.”
Hold on! That girdle may have looked like it was “profitable for nothing,” but in the eyes of God it was still good for something. Though that girdle was marred and soiled, it was still good to be used as an illustration in a sermon. Though the girdle would never be worn with nice clothing again, it was still useful to salvage the lives of those who would hear the sermon on the girdle. Yes, in man’s eyes it seemed as though it was “profitable for nothing,” but with God’s help it was still able to be used.
Let me encourage those of you who have been marred by sin and seemingly are profitable for nothing. Let me encourage you that you are still good for something. You may not be able to do what you used to do, but there is still something you can do for God. You may not grace the platforms or Sunday school podiums as you used to, but God still has something for which He can use you. Sin may have soiled your life and left its stain, but there is still something for which God can use you. Don’t ever believe the Devil’s lies that God can never use you, for there is still something you can do.
Moreover, you need to be careful about looking at people as profitable for nothing. You are not the judge of what God can do. If God has left someone on this Earth, then He still has something they can do. Samson certainly must have seemed profitable for nothing, but God still found something for Him to do. Be careful about judging those who have fallen in sin because you may be the next one. Always let God be the One Who determines whether or not something is useful.
Furthermore, let me cheer the one who picked themselves back up from sin’s grip and is doing something with their life. Let me tell you that I want to be your cheerleader. Don’t let the criticisms of the pharisees discourage you. Keep serving God with what you have. The judgment seat will certainly be the revealing source of what God has done through your life after sin has soiled you. Don’t give up! Simply keep serving God and trusting that you are still profitable.