As you reflect on your own journey with Jesus, what lengths has God gone to in order to reach you? Who has he brought into your life to show you Christ? Philip left behind flourishing relationships and a ministry that made sense to set out into the desert alone. There, he interrupted an Ethiopian in his quest for full life and introduced him to Jesus. God goes to great lengths to reach one person at a time, but he invites us to be a part of this work.
Ephesians 4:14-16 says, “Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (NIV). This passage describes God’s plan for using the full force of the church to love people one at a time. When we live isolated from the church and don’t engage in God’s work of loving people one at a time, we remain infants in the faith who are easily swayed by lies. But when we each do our part within the Body and engage in God’s one-at-a-time love, we grow in maturity and look more like Christ.
When God calls us to join him in his work, he will call us to do unreasonable and impractical things, but fighting for peoples’ eternities is always worth it. God gives us this gift of working alongside him in his beautiful plan of salvation, but he also gives us the gift of his presence. The more we give ourselves to God’s work, the more we experience the true character of God. When we join God in doing the impractical and unreasonable to reach people for Christ, we set aside our expectations about who God is and how he is supposed to work, and we get to experience his saving grace up close.
Reflection/Discussion Questions: As you reflect on your own journey with Jesus, what lengths has God gone to in order to reach you? How can you do the same thing for others?
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