Can You Make a Difference?
26 January 2007Anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of a morning person. I’d like to be but I really prefer to sleep until 8:00 or later if it’s up to me. Every Friday morning, however, I get up at 5:00. What could possibly motivate me to do that? Something called Man to Man at my church. It’s a group of around 100 men who meet at the church at 6:30 every Friday morning for breakfast and teaching from our pastor and I try hard not to miss.
This morning our pastor was talking about a vision for men and he said something that struck me. I think it has a broader application for everyone, not just men. He said “you make a difference.” Think about that. We become accustomed to seeing ourselves as insignificant in the scheme of things. From a political perspective it is common to hear someone say “my vote doesn’t matter anyway.” Our society has managed to reduce us, in our own eyes, to insignificance. There’s even a book entitled The Search for Significance.
Much, if not most of our lives are spent in attempting to somehow matter. We all want to think that we’re valuable, that we’re needed. Yet everywhere we turn we’re told, either implicitly or explicitly, that we are irrelevant.
If you are a Christian you should know otherwise. In God’s eyes each of His children is more than significant, we are in fact, important. He choses to accomplish His objectives through us! It’s not as if He needed us. I mean, how presumptuous would it be for me the think that God could not accomplish His objectives without my help? Yet He chooses to use me. That just blows me away. God thinks I am important and He invests in me. Simply amazing.
I can, of course, refuse to be available to God. If we do that He will accomplish His objectives another way. Those objectives will be accomplished, make no mistake. But I miss out on what God has in store for me. I miss His blessing.
The Israelites who wandered in the dessert for 40 years are an example of that. God had a plan for them and it was a grand plan. Because they trusted their own judgment over God’s, they chose not to follow God’s plan and the result was 40 wasted years in the wilderness. Only two people of that generation entered the promised land. Of the twelve spies sent to reconnoiter the promised land, only Caleb and Joshua said the Israelites could take it. God had already promised it but out of all Israel, only those two men believed God. So they all wasted 40 years. God stayed with them and continued to care for and provide for them but their lives were wasted. They chose to not make a difference. Forty years later, Joshua lead the Israelites into the promised land. Because of Joshua’s faithfulness and obedience, his life was much more than significant, it was critical to God’s plan and to the nation of Israel.
Every Christian faces a similar choice each day. Will we choose to be available to God? Or will we choose insignificance?
We can all start by engaging our society. What better example could there be than Jesus himself? He didn’t withdraw into some “Christian” group and refuse to interact with the society at large. Rather, He spent His time with “sinners,” something that often got Him into hot water with the local religious officials who thought it unseemly to hang around with such people. Jesus had a better plan. He lived what He taught and did so out among the general populous. People saw that He wasn’t just some guy seeking fame. He actually lived they way He taught others to live. Can we do any less?
If you want to make a difference in our declining society, learn to be salt and light. That means doing what Jesus did. Live you faith and do it in public. That doesn’t mean bragging about what a great Christian you are. No one but Jesus could have rightly boasted about His morality yet He didn’t. Surely we shouldn’t when we fall regularly. No, living our faith in public simply means being open and honest about what we believe, living like we really believe it, and loving other people. It does NOT mean accepting immoral behavior but it also does not mean condemning people who live in immoral ways. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus He did not condemn her, neither did He accept or approve her adulterous behavior. He loved her, He had compassion on her and He told her to stop what she was doing. That is our model. That is how God uses use each day.
There are, of course, times when God uses us in huge ways that we would never have envisioned ourselves doing. But mostly, God uses us to “Be salt and light” in the world. To live as Jesus lived, being an example in the world. I’m all for voting for conservative candidates and supporting conservative legislation and values in government. I think it’s important for Christians to do that. But people’s live are not going to be changed through laws or through government. God changes people lives through His people and their interactions in the world.
That’s the direction this blog is heading. I want to explore what it means to be a Christian in the world we live in. What are we called to do? How do we engage our society, our government, our elected officials and our neighbors? Much of what I write will be exploratory. I’ll throw out ideas that I’m exploring and attempting to evaluate. I’d like your input.
As I said a couple of posts back, I’ll still write some purely political posts. My last post was in that category. But primarily, this blog will be about being a Christian in the world and what that looks like. Please, feel free to contribute.
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