Weekly Devotional: November 11, 2026

DEVOTIONAL
by Captain Robert Coriston
Corps Officer of Tyler Texas

GOD’S WORD

1 Corinthians 1:26-27
“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”

DEVOTIONAL
“The Wrong Criteria”

Junior high was the first time I remember organized sports becoming a big deal. There were football tryouts, wrestling tryouts, basketball tryouts and kids were competing for spots on the teams.  I didn't try out for any of them.  Organized sports weren't really my thing at the time.  Then one day, after wrestling tryouts were already over, the wrestling coach, who also happened to be the art teacher, approached me after class.  He said something along the lines of, “Hey, I think you should be on the wrestling team.”  That got my attention.

People had actually tried out for this team and hadn't made it.  I hadn't even shown up to tryouts, and the coach was recruiting me.  Immediately my junior-high mind started filling in the blanks.  Apparently, this guy saw something in me.  Maybe he had heard about my dominance on the kickball field at recess.  Maybe he had noticed some hidden athletic ability. I didn't really know what he saw, but this guy coached wrestling for a living. Surely, he knew what he was looking for.  And apparently, whatever it was, I had it.

So, for a brief period of time, I started thinking pretty highly of myself.  Maybe I had been walking around with all this untapped athletic potential and didn't even know it.  I agreed to join the team.  It didn't take long for me to discover why the coach had actually approached me.  He needed somebody who weighed about 98 pounds.  And I weighed about 98 pounds. That was it.  There was no scouting report.  Nobody had told him about my legendary kickball abilities.  He wasn't studying my demeanor from across the cafeteria thinking, “That kid has the heart of a champion.”  He had an empty spot in a weight class.  What I had imagined the coach was looking for was completely different from what he was actually looking for.

Years later, I realized I had done something very similar with God.  When I got sober and gave my life to Christ, I knew God had done something for me that I could never have done for myself.  He had rescued me.  And somewhere along the way, I began believing that because God had saved me, I needed to prove that He had made a good choice.  I needed to get everything right.  I needed to say the right things, believe the right things, behave the right way, and become the person I thought God expected me to be. I started treating my Christian life almost like one long tryout.  Every success meant maybe I deserved my spot on the team.  Every failure made me wonder whether God regretted calling me in the first place.  Then I started paying closer attention to the people Jesus actually called. Jesus walked up to fishermen and said, “Follow me.”  He called Matthew while Matthew was sitting at a tax collector's booth.  He surrounded Himself with people who were rough around the edges, people with questionable reputations, people who misunderstood Him, argued with each other, doubted, failed, and sometimes said exactly the wrong thing. These weren't the religious all-stars.  There were certainly people in Israel who knew more Scripture than Peter.  There were people with cleaner reputations than Matthew. There were people with better credentials, stronger educations, and more impressive religious résumés.

Yet Jesus kept calling ordinary, imperfect people.  His criteria was different then one would expect.  Jesus wasn't searching for people who had already arrived.  He was calling people who were willing to follow.  That distinction changed something in me.  God didn't wait until I had defeated every temptation before He called me.  He didn't wait until every character defect disappeared.  He didn't wait until I had accumulated enough sober days to finally be useful. People have a tendency to believe that we need to get ourselves together before God can really do anything with us.  Maybe after I stop struggling with this one thing God can use me.

But that isn't how Jesus called disciples.  He didn't say, “Fix yourself and then follow me.” He said, “Follow me.”  And then, while they followed Him, He changed them.  We don't become perfect and then surrender.  We surrender, and God begins the long work of transforming us.  Repentance doesn't mean I have already fixed everything that is wrong with me. Repentance means I have turned around. I have stopped insisting on my own direction and have begun following Christ.  That's something God can work with.  A surrendered heart and a teachable spirit.  A person willing to say, “Jesus, I don't have this figured out, but I will follow You.”  The growth comes.  The character begins to change.  But those things grow out of relationship with Christ. They aren't the entrance requirements.

I spent a lot of years worrying that every failure meant I was disappointing God.  But I had misunderstood the criteria.  I thought God was looking for a finished product.  He was looking for surrender.  I thought He was looking for somebody who could prove himself worthy of being chosen.  He was looking for somebody willing to follow.  Just like that junior-high wrestling coach, God wasn't evaluating me according to the qualifications I had invented in my head.  Thankfully, His criteria is different.  Jesus is still saying the same two words He said to ordinary fishermen and a despised tax collector: “Follow me.”

You don't have to win the tryout.  You just have to answer the call.

PRAYER
Jesus, thank You for calling imperfect people to follow You. Forgive me for the
times I have treated Your grace like something I needed to earn. Help me remember
that You did not call me because I already had everything together. You called me to
surrender, repent, trust You, and follow. Give me a teachable heart and the courage
to keep following You even when I stumble. Let my obedience grow out of love
for You rather than fear that I have something to prove.
Amen.