My sweet friend Kimberly has kindly given me permission to share a powerful video her church created based on something God showed her. In openly shares her struggles with condemnation and how they were making her see herself so differently than God does. When I watching this months ago, I knew I wanted to make it part of week 7 as we read Chapter 7, When Doubt Whispers “You’re Such a Failure”! Whether you are in my online study or not, this is a message for each of us.
Once you watch the (less than 2 minute) video message, please read what Kim wrote below about the way God spoke to her heart about His thoughts towards us, our failures and flaws. I pray it blesses you as much as it blessed me! {If you are reading this via email, PLEASE double click on the title of this post “How Can God use Me? to go to my website to watch the video and connect in community.)
A few years ago, if you would have asked me if I believed that God loved me, I would have told you, “Yes.” Realizing His great love for me has been one of the sweetest truths I have ever come to know.
BUT, if you had asked me if I believed God could use me or would even WANT to use me… well, I would have hemmed and hawed and never really landed on an exact yes or no. Why? Because I felt unusable. My sins and mistakes disqualified me. I looked at myself and saw all of my flaws. I saw deep insecurities. I saw my too often short temper. I saw a lack of discipline, a lack of Biblical knowledge. I saw lack upon lack, failure upon failure.
“Jesus loves me? Yes. He died for me. But Jesus would like to use me. Ummmm…seriously? I think not.”
I love how He corrects our wrong thinking through His Word.
As I sat reading the Bible one day, heart heavy from discouragement, God led me to read John 3:17. It comes right after John 3:16, one of the earliest verses we ever learn about how God loved the world so much He sent His only Son Jesus to die for us so that, believing in Him, we could have eternal life. John 3:17 goes on to tell us more:
“For God did not send His Son Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
I felt the Lord urging me to look up the definition the words “condemn.”
Condemn- 1. to pass an adverse judgement on; disapprove of strongly, censure; 2. a) to declare to be guilty of wrongdoing; convict b) to pass judicial sentence on; inflict a penalty upon c) to doom; 3. to declare (property) legally appropriated for public use; 4. to declare unfit for use or service. (Webster’s Dictionary)
That was exactly how I felt. Unsafe. Unlovely. Unusable.
Convinced that Jesus wanted to wrap caution tape around my life to keep people back. “Stay away from this one. I love her, but she’s still too messed up to be of any use to me. Better stand clear of her.”
The words of John 3:17 coupled with the last definition released a flood of truth and healing over my heart. The Father was whispering tenderly to me. He did not see me as I saw myself. He did not see a condemned building…someone dangerous. Someone unlovely. Someone unusable. He saw someone He loved so much that He would send His only Son to die a shameful and excruciating death for her. He sent His Son to save me. To forgive me. To heal me. To set me free, fill me up, and USE me.
The tears began to flow as He let me know that I am usable. And not only does He find me usable. He wants to use me. I am not the same woman I was 13 years ago.
- I have been forgiven of all of my sins. (1 John 1:9) (even the “big bad” ones)
- I am a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
- I am complete in Christ. (Colossians 2:10)
- I have purpose in Him. (Ephesians 2:10)
Let these sweet truths wash over you today. Jesus did not come to label you unusable. He loves you and He has a purpose for your life that is of great use to His kingdom!
***
Thank you so much Kimberly for sharing your heart and being so honest with us today. I got so much encouragement from your video and writing. So many of us can relate to what you shared.
Let’s Connect: So friends…How about you? Do you believe God loves you, yet struggle to believe He could ever use you? Do you struggle to believe He would want to use you as you look at all of your sins, flaws and failures? . I’m so thankful Kimberly set the stage for some real life transparency today.
(And after you leave a little note here, would you take a minute to hop over to Kimberly‘s blog to read more of her thoughts from A Confident Heart. She’s posting something God shows her in each chapter on her blog each week.)
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Thank you Kimberly. I oftentimes I feel insecure about everything, whether I can’t speak well, I don’t dress well. I am often reminded of what I have been through and know that God was with me through them all. Insecurity is one that the devil really knows how to play well. But I am so glad that God does not see in me what I see and what man sees. I now realize that He wants me to be secure in Him and not in the things of this world. He doesn’t condemn me but rather I condemn myself and until I realize that God can use anyone in His time, it will all be fine. Thank you so much Kimberly and Renee!!!
WOW!! Yes, this is exactly how I have been feeling, unusable. Can God really use me? Why would He want to? Yes, I know that He loves me and died for me, but use me? This will be my heart cry this week. What is it Lord?
I so know how you feel Yolanda…Thank you for your heart…He does use us…We are clay pots, cracked and broken but He uses us still…I have to believe that this week also my sweet sister…
Thanks You for this post today. I like many of you struggle with insecurities and sins that make me feel unworthy of service or being used by Him. I feel hopeful that I can believe the truth that I know to be true and that God has written on my heart! I pray that he will lead me and that I will be open and with His strength be strong to follow. As I enter this new chapter of my life I want to live in His light and let it shine so others may come to know him also. You are truely a blessing to me I am so glad God lead me to this study! <3
Thankyou for sharing this video, I love the comparison to an empty condemned house, I ask that God will fill my heart with the knowing that I am usable by Him and for Him. He will never condemn me but will lift me up to Him.
I live daily by “Jesus loves me this I know”. And for me, no matter how good life is or what struggles I face, I live confidently knowing that.
Renee, you were right a couple of weeks ago when you said God has you exactly in the book where He wants you. I am in week 7, and He led me to begin reading it early this morning! I have beat myself up over and over this week for failures. Between me and the accuser, I felt completely condemned, unlovely, and everything else negative! God loves me and His sovereignty amazes me. I just finished writing out two pages in my journal. He came to heal me. He came for everything. He came to heal me of all my stuff. I am thankful He sees my potential. He knows exactly what we need when we need it. While I am here, I am reminded of a story I heard last week that I need to share and I hope it encourages! My dear friend lost her husband to cancer about two years ago. Valentines Day was a special day and he always got her roses and spoiled her. She awoke knowing it would be a heavy day so she was determined to stay busy. She started missing him so she put on his coat, and just kept doing things around the house wearing it. She then found herself sitting in his chair snuggled up in the coat. She must have dozed off because the doorbell rang and woke her up. It was the florist with a dozen red roses and a card that said, happy valentines day, i love you – Quil. She knew God was behind it and that her son must have done it so she called him to thank him. He said mom, I am going to be honest with you, at 8:30 this morning I was driving along and heard dad say as clear as a bell, Kevin, order your mama some roses for Valentines Day and tell her I love her. He said he immediately pulled off the highway and thought, how am I going to get flowers wired on VAlentines Day, its no way they will have any but lo and behold, it worked out. God is so good. He knew exactly what she needed when she needed it and He supplied. Isn’t He so good? She said that an author she was reading stated this in a book when asked how she was doing – “My God is good to me”. She said she was going to start using that exact statement when asked. You know, we all should as well. Our God is good to us! He knew what I needed this morning, downtrodden and discouraged and deteated, He reached down and put chapter 7 on my heart and inspired me to read it this very day. My God is good to me! Amen?? Amen!! I praise Him!!
I just have to say to THANK YOU, THANK YOU and THANK YOU.Your words have truly blessed me today reading them brought tears down my eyes because that’s how I was strongly feeling today. I was at work feeling like what is my purpose am I ever going to prosper in life? Why am I here on earth? Can I really do all things through Christ who strengthen me? Do I really believe that Jesus is the strength of my heart and my portion forever? This energy of doubt, discouragement , unworthy and purposeless was so strong within me that when a co worker stated something about hope, I could not believe it. And I went on break just thinking… I say I love Jesus and that He is my living Savior.How can this be what came over me? I couldn’t believe the mental state I was in. However getting in from work and reading your words spoke to my very soul. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THEM! GOD HAS TRULY BLESSED YOU! BE BLESSED! I WILL PRAY FOR YOU AS I HOPE YOU PRAY FOR ME!
I read this post right after coming here from Wendy Blight’s blog! Her post for today was great and discussed how our identities should be based on what God sees in us!
Remember, we are ALL created with purpose to do great works for God’s Kingdom. (Ephesians 2:10).
(I need to remind myself of that frequently!)
Hi precious friends!! Oh how full my heart is reading your comments late tonight as I get ready for bed. I’ve been traveling all day and the drama of my week didn’t stop when I got to the airport. We got calls saying our flight was delayed by an hour but when we got to the airport it was back on schedule and we missed it. So we waited 3 hours for the next one. Then we flew through crazy storms, got to PA at 3:40 and the baggage compartment of the plane wouldn’t open. So we sat in baggage claims until 5:30 waiting to see if they would get our luggage out. I was asking for a crowbar to help them but they didn’t take me up on it. Have you ever heard of a baggage compartment getting stuck closed? I made the most of the time working on some things for my event and one coming up. All the while the clock was ticking down. We finally got our luggage and headed to Tuscarora. Arrived with less than 2 hours to find our way around the conference center, meet with the production team, grab dinner, change clothes in the bathroom and the event began!!
And it was SO MUCH FUN!! I could feel God’s Spirit fill that place and sense His encouragement and grace pouring out and into each heart. It is a great group of women and I’m so looking forward to what He’s got planned this weekend. There were a few times this week I was ready to quit. Ready to take up a friends offer to come and speak in my place. Ready to call it quits and see all this craziness as a sign that it must be time for me to stop this speaking and traveling gig because there are way too many obstacles for one person and her worn-out family to endure. BUT GOD!! I didn’t sense that was His plan – although it felt like it should be mine. I’m so glad He made a way where it seemed there would be no way I could get here and be used by HIM this weekend.
And yet I am. ANd then tonight. To come online and pull up a chair while Im in my jambes to hang out here with you. To see how God is speaking to you so personally and powerfully and specifically through Kim’s video and writing – it just fills in the all the gaps I’ve felt this week.
A few of you mentioned how we really have something special here. We do.I”m so glad God us together to experience intimacy with HIM and transparency with each other.
I just want you to know that He wants you to persevere in believing Him. HE’s crazy in love with you and He wants to use you to love on, encourage, pray for, minister to others- THAT is how He can and wants to use you– today. It does’t have or need to be big and measurable by others. HE simply wants us to be faithful with whatever HE puts right in front of us. Just offer Him what you have and invite Him to use it. ALl in His name and for the purpose of letting HIM use you to reveal His love and His ways to those around you.
And remember, you have a big old group of women who love you, who are praying for you and who are so glad you are here. AND the biggest one is me!! You bless me so!!
Renee, i so love when you encourage us: that He can and wants to use us in whatever He puts right in front of us today, (tonight, tomorrow), offering Him what we have and invite Him to use it. He has the big view of how important this is, and can be, to someone in need. Thank you!
I know i have to give him all my self doubt in order to be free!
Beauty for Ashes, i need to release my Ashes( all self doubt, fear, hurt, wounds of the heart, worthlessness)
for the Beauty of a life God has promised me & you…..
I have been feeling the exact same way my whole life!!! I am such a work in progress
We are all a work in progress…and prayerfully a work that moves ahead and not backwards. Blessings to all the ladies here in the study!!!
This chapter is so important because there is a such a distance so much of the time between knowing in your head that you are forgiven for your mistakes and really feeling confident in that. It is helping to know that others experience the same struggles and to be given the tools to help focus my thoughts on the truth of God’s word and what He says about who I am!
Great video and great timing. Sometimes I wonder why God loves me because I feel so broken but in my mind I know He does. Though I have to say that right now in my life I feel so broken and unrepairable that He couldn’t possibly use me – I am so messed up and insecure just like Kimberely shared about her life-I too feel the same when I am so deep in my depression. I do have glimpes of God’s truth and life that helps at times but what really encourages me is when I hear somebody else’s story that is like mine and I get hope. If God can work and use them than there is a chance He can use me and my life for His glory.
Thank you for sharing your heart and being transparent so that other’s can have hope.
Hi, sweet Cindy! I so, so, so understand the struggle with believing God could possibly love me. I have spent so much of my life actually pushing His love AWAY because I just could not believe it was true. I could not wrap my mind around the fact I did not have to earn it or deserve it. It was just mine to have. But I had to believe it and receive it.
Recently, during worship at my church, I felt the Lord whisper something to my heart…something I did not feel like was just for me. I heard, “Stop trying to talk Me out of loving you.” Wow. How often do we do that? We run through lists in our minds of all the reasons God SHOULDN”T love us, telling Him all of the places we fall short, all of the reasons we are unlovable. And we push His love away.
Maybe His whisper to me is one for you, too. “Stop trying to talk Me out of loving you.” No matter what you have done, no matter how broken you may feel, you cannot make Him stop loving you. AND you were created with purpose, and that purpose remains. He wants to use you, to impact lives through you.
Know this insecure heart is sending hugs to YOUR insecure heart. I so get it. I really do.
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain…” John 15:16. HE chose YOU…and He does not regret that for one single second. 🙂
Much love,
K
Kimberly and Renee: Thank you for your transparency. I think because of how honest you have been in your writing, I’ve allowed myself to approach those sins from the past…something that I’ve spent years RUNNING from. If only the saying ‘forgive and forget’ applied to our own mind. I cannot forget those painful memories; they always seem to surface when I least expect it and it overwhelms me. But through God’s Word, His truth tells me that I need not worry about any of that because He loves me for who I am…and for the first time in my life, I’m starting to actually believe it. Thank you for being there on this amazing journey of new awareness that I’m on. God has blessed me so very much by guiding me to this book/Bible study. I am forever grateful. May you be clothed in Christ’s peace in this moment.
I really enjoyed it when Kimberly said that when the Lord helps us to grow and change, or learn something new about the Lord that is when the enemy turns up the heat ! I really agree. When we start to move closer to the Lord, then the enemy will get upset and turn up the heat. I need to brace myself to get challenged. We will all be challenged in our walk with the Lord when we grow and change to love the Lord more. That is when other things in our life will start to change and happen and we know that the enemy is turning up the heat. I guess that is when we have to continue to simply trust in the Lord.
Kimberly and Renee,
Thank you for sharing. I have been feeling much like a failure this week as a step-mother. Thank you for sharing. It’s so good to be reminded that Jesus came not to condemn us but to save us. That helps so much. Thank you for sharing your story of how God spoke to you about this. Also, that God does want to use us. Thank you.
Praying for you, V! I have a friend who just recently remarried and is now a stepmother. And I know as happy as she is, it has still come with challenges. So glad He encouraged your heart here today!
Wow…This puts things in a whole new perspective what Kimberly said “Buildings are condemned; not people.” Our Bible verse “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” spoke so gently to my heart. All I could think of is how deep a mothers love for her children is and wanting to hold her children ever so close to her heart and hug their deepest hurts away. How much more our Heavenly Father loves us wraps His loving arms tightly around us holding us so close that He can feel our heart beat. He loves us so much He gave us His promises we have full access to!
Praying each lady can actually feel Gods comforting arms wrapped tightly around them!!
Thanks for sharing your story Kimberly with all of us sometimes my sister brings up my faults against me It makes me feel unlovable. Thanks for reminding me Christ loves me and can use me. My past is nailed on the cross because I confessed it a long time ago to Jesus and he has forgiven me.I Sometimes I need to be reminded of God’s Grace and forgiveness
Thank you.
Kimberly, thank you so much for sharing this with us. I still don’t know what it is exactly that God wants to use me FOR, but I know now that when he reveals his purpose to me, I am going to be ready to receive it.
I’m praying for chains to be broken, prisoners to be freed, bonds to be loosed…letting the oppressed go free. God, bring Your complete freedom….loose our chains!!!! Jesus, You died so that we could be free from the effects of sin. Break all curses….set us free, in Jesus name.