From Paul Tripp, in Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change regarding a man who had a friend that needed help and thought about bringing him to church to get help, the pastor praised God and walked him through helping rather than taking over. This is how we help one another mature in faith, allowing to love God with our whole selves. He describes it like this:
He didn’t see himself as one of God’s instruments, only as one of God’s conduits—a passive channel connecting one thing to another. An instrument is a tool that is actively used to change something, and God has called all of his people to be instruments of change in his redemptive hands. Embedded in the larger story of redemption is a principle we must not miss: God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others. What mission board, what ministry, what local church would use the people God used in Scripture? There was Moses (an exiled murderer), Gideon (fearful and hiding), David (the shepherd boy with no military training), Peter (who publicly denied Christ), and Paul (persecutor of the church), to name a few. Along with these are untold numbers of little people God used in big ways to fulfill his plan on earth. God never intended us to simply be the objects of his love. We are also called to be instruments of that love in the lives of others.
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