I'm reading Matthew chapter 11. A familiar fire in my soul flickers, comes to life. The words burn in me.
Here we see John the Baptist in prison. Herod Antipas imprisoned John in his Perean fortress Machaerus. (See Matthew 14:3.)
John, in prison, has been hearing about all the things Jesus was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
John's disciples come to Jesus. "John wants to know, are you the promised Messiah?"
Jesus answers with a laundry list of what he has been up to. This list includes,
- blind people see
- lame people walk
- lepers are healed
- deaf people hear
- dead people are raised to life
- the Good News is preached to the poor
This is what Jesus does. These miracles have persuasive power.
And I have witnessed some of these things.
I keep coming back to 1 Corinthians 4:20. For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.
I want that, flowing through me, through our church, through The Church. There's a whole lot of talk in churches, with a lot less demonstration of the kind of power manifested in Jesus.
Kingdom power. This is the game changer, the culture shifter, the light bearer, the difference maker, the heart persuader, the Messiah signature, the hope bringer, the Kingdom messenger, the chain breaker, the religion exposer, the truth revealer, the fear disposer, the life dispenser, the hope injector.
The power of God, demonstrated, on display. This is what I long for. This is what the church not only needs, but requires, for such a dark time as this. Fewer words. More power.
