As I read John 14:12 I cannot but stand in awe and wonder as Jesus has the audacity to say that we will do greater things than what he did, especially as I look around the world today and say, where is the power, where is the evidence? Not only do we not seem to be doing greater things than Jesus did, we don’t even see much evidence of the basic stuff. When was the last time you prayed for someone and saw them healed of an Illness? As I look around I see people dying from diseases like cancer and diabetes and I have to wonder, where is the power of the church? Where is the “greater things” that Jesus was referring to? You know, for a group of people who are supposed to be the representatives of God on the earth, we are pretty powerless. There is a spiritual war going on for the lives of the people around us and we are in danger of losing the battle. It feels like I can’t even muster up enough faith to heal the cut on my arm let alone raise someone from the dead.
What did Jesus mean when he said that we would do greater things? Well personally I believe that when God says something he means it, so I think he meant exactly what he said, that we would do greater things. So that brings me to the question, why are we not doing greater things? What is wrong with the church that has caused us to lose our ability to exercise the authority and power of God? It is a big question I know and the answer has many parts but I would like to discuss with you what I believe forms a solid foundation for the answer in this study.
Several weeks ago I was lying on my lounge room floor pondering this exact question. Why are we as children of the most high God so unable to see his authority and power manifest in our society? At this point in my pondering God spoke to me and reminded me of his command in Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength”. It is a simple statement and a very commonly quoted piece of scripture yes, but it got me thinking. Do we in the western world know what it means to truly love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength? Based on what I’ve seen and experienced, I would have to say “no”.
Looking around our society the models of love that I see are so often based on selfishness. We love people and things for what they can do for us and how they make us feel. It is all about us and given the divorce rate in our society, clearly when that thing or person no longer fulfils that desire within us we discard the relationship. Ok, so most of us know that this doesn’t represent real love, but what does God mean when he asks us to love him with all our heart, soul and strength?
The call to love with all our heart, soul and strength is a call to ultimate devotion (Acts 2:42-47). God is calling us to give ourselves away to him entirely, that we should be consumed by him (Luke 9:57-62) and that his word, his love and his life should be our every breath and desire (John 21:15-22). He is asking us to be so consumed by him that we fix our eyes and heart and mind on him so that we are physically unable to look away and our desire to do so is nonexistent(Colossians 3:1-4).
A relationship of this magnitude requires an extraordinary amount of trust and faith and it takes time to develop. We must start by simply taking one step and each step we take that brings us closer to God makes the next step easier. There will be times when it seems that all hope is lost and we cannot move on but God will not let go of us. He has promised that he will never leave nor forsake us and we are not alone on this journey, we are designed to be a community so that we can help one another walk the road into the arms of God.
So how exactly do we start to develop a relationship with God so that we can develop a love for God that is even remotely along the lines of love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength? Well fortunately God has given us a hint on how to do this through the relationships we have with one another. We are all created in the image of God and so it seems reasonable that we can develop a relationship with God the same way we develop relationships with one another. So let’s look at how we develop relationships with one another.
Think about your own experience of relationships, if you’re married think about your relationship with your spouse, if you’re not married think about another relationship you have, maybe with your best friend. How did that relationship start? You didn’t just meet the person and all of a sudden know everything about them. Maybe you didn’t even like them to start with but somehow you got to know them and by knowing who they truly were you began to love them. We build relationships with God the same way; we have to start off by finding out who he is. I am not talking about just head knowledge, we learn about God from the Bible, but knowing God comes from our hearts not our heads just like it does with our close earthly relationships. To truly know someone you need to spend time with them, talk with them and listen to what they say. It doesn’t matter if you start out by simply talking about the weather, but the more you talk to them and associate with them the more you begin to learn who they are, their mannerisms, their traits and their beliefs. The more you know them the more you come to love and trust them.
I think we develop relationships with God in the same way, one conversation at a time; we have to allow him to speak to us, to say whatever it is he wants to say. As we allow him to speak we begin to learn who he is, we begin to understand the desires of his heart. As we grow in relationship with him we also learn to trust him and as we begin to trust him more we are able to share more of ourselves with him and allow him to share more of himself with us.
God is a gentleman, he will never force a relationship on you, but if you allow him to, it is his joy to share himself with you. But remember that a relationship that is entirely encompassing requires both parties to be devoted to one another and your desire has to be for the wellbeing of God just as his desire is for your wellbeing. A relationship that is all your heart, soul and strength cannot be about what God can do for you or what you can learn from him it has to be about who he is, it has to be about living for his desire not for your own.
This relationship is what gives us the capacity to exercise God’s power and authority on the earth. Miracles are a side effect of an all encompassing love not something to be attained in their own right. It is through our display of love for God that the world will see his truth and will come to know him. Miracles are just a physical outworking of the love of God that demonstrates his love, power and authority. The true power of God is found in his heart.
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1 comment:
I think you are so right about much of what you said, but I think the biggest reason that Christians aren't doing "greater things" is because the churches have been "dumbed down". For 1500 years, the Catholic Church was the most powerful religious influence in the world, and its leaders told the people that only THEY (the Magesterium) had power and authority to do anything. People gave up all ability to have faith outside of the church. They looked to the church to do everything. The churches today have forgotten HOW to have the miracle kind of faith. We read about how, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, people had power over sickness, death, spirits, and even the weather, but we don't think that is for us today. We make excuses, and say that the "greater things" must mean spreading the gospel to a greater area that He was able to. That is weak. Jesus DID mean it when He said we would do more than He did. The problem now is, how do we relearn that miracle faith?
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