I have this crazy idea that what I do matters. I don't mean that it matters to my wife or my friends. I don't even mean that God will judge me sometime after I die for what I did on earth. What I mean is the Lord of the Universe uses my faithful actions to bring about His Kingdom. Do you realize how crazy this sounds? What I do matters.
But this is what Jesus lived and taught. For example, when he was in his hometown, people didn't think he was anyone special. He grew up with these people, after all! So what did he do there? Not much, really. Mark records it by saying that "he could do no miracle there" (6:5). While the other Evangelists say that "he did not do miracles there", Mark boldly proclaims that the Son of God was stymied because of others' lack of belief. Do you realize how crazy this sounds? What I think matters.
I'm not sure if many Christians really get this idea. What I do matters. Yes, we pray. Yes, we might even read our Bibles. But what if we really believed that God can and will do glorious things through us? Jesus said we will do greater things than he did. But we have to believe. We have to believe that there is a correlation between prayer and results, though science would tell us otherwise. We have to believe that something special, indescribable, is happening during our church services, and act accordingly. We have to believe that God really, really, really thinks we who are unworthy are indeed worthy of being used in mighty ways. Do you realize how crazy this sounds? What I believe matters.
But it just might be a lunatic God's looking for.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Jon;
Once again an excellent post!
As Jesus said…
“…your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven…”
Amen
I loved the veiled Billy Joel references - one of my favorite songs by him actually. :)
Hi Jon;
I want you to know that I have presented you with an award, come and get it from my blog http://lifeontheblade.blogspot.com/ under the article “Awards…for me…?”
Jon
Could it be that if the proper research could be done on prayer, it would produce imperical evidence that prayer is profitable? Possibly one of the problems of such research is that science, out of necessity, must approach the field, so to speak, of Christians with the assumption that there are no weeds. In light of Mt. 7:21, it seems that it would be impossible for anyone to do this kind of research... by design perhaps?
This post causes me to remember the extent to which my tiniest thoughts and deeds have an impact in the Kingdom of heaven, and that we are indeed in a race surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses!
Livingsword,
Thanks for the award! Wow, now I have an award-winning blog! Good times.
Danny,
You should check out Lewis' essay on precisely this topic entitled The Efficacy of Prayer, which can be found in the book The World's Last Night and Other Essays. (I picked up this book at B&N for $13. It is a good buy.) He argues that you can never empirically test prayer because prayer is not a mechanism; it is communication with a Person.
Another essay in the book is Religion and Rocketry, which is his explanation of how Christianity would be impacted if we came into contact with extraterrestrials. Very interesting.
Josh,
I am glad someone picked up on it!
Post a Comment