Scripture reading: Acts 16:6–15

The Key to World Transformation

Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17)

When one’s eyes are opened to the overwhelming needs around us and then realizes that the Lord Jesus is calling us to help change the world, it can feel overwhelming, even paralyzing. What can I do—where should I begin? Should I volunteer for the food pantry? share the Gospel with my neighbor? go on a short term missions trip or help tutor inner city students? give more money to the Missions Fund? all of the above?

To help cut through the paralysis that comes from analysis, let me suggest a plan that is both profoundly simple and simply profound: find out where God is already working and join him there!

This idea is hardly original. Though it has been popularized by Henry Blackaby and others, it was Jesus himself who first implemented it. He just walked around with his eyes wide open. When he found where his Father was at work, he got in on the action!

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. (John 5:19–20)

Getting involved in God’s program to change the world is not complicated. It has little to do with education, gifting, funding, intelligence, abilities, or even spiritual maturity. While these things certainly have their place, the real key to effective ministry is this: open your eyes and discover where God is already at work in the world around you . . . and join him there. Whether in the family, the workplace, the community, or the neighborhood, just open your eyes. God is already there working: in the college student asking questions, the widow living with fear, the addict struggling with guilt, the colleague battling depression, the sales clerk struggling with whom to vote for, the boss facing cancer, the neighbor who just lost her job, etc. You don’t have to cross the ocean to be involved in the Great Commission; just look around you! Find where God is already moving and become a co-laborer with him (I Cor. 3:9).

The story is told of a day some three hundred years ago in London when the famous architect Sir Christopher Wren visited the work site of his most famous construction, Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The workmen did not know his face so they had no clue that the architect himself was in their midst. Walking over the construction area, Wren asked various workers to explain what they were doing. “Are you blind?” one workman snapped. “I’m cutting a piece of stone.” A second man simply said, “It’s a job. I need the money to provide for my family.” A third laborer smiled and stepped back from his shovel. Pointing to the rising edifice around them, he proudly said, “Me? I’m helping Sir Christopher Wren build the world’s greatest cathedral to the glory of God!”

Dear friend, are your eyes open? Today God is at work all around you. He is inviting you to get in on the glorious action of what he is already doing!

In many cases, our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is nothing short of a clear indication of
how little we are engaged in his work.  —Dallas Willard

point to ponder • Find out where God is already working and join him there.

prayer focus • Eyes to see where God is at work and strength for hands and feet to join him there.