This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled, You Had One Job… J.D. is the Executive Director of Seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.
WORD
Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Acts 1:6–11 (NIV)
CONSIDER THIS
If I'm honest, and you know I try to be, I mostly want God to fix the broken things in my life. I want Jesus to heal me inside and out. I want him to restore to me—borrowing the prophet Joel's imagery—the years the locusts have eaten. I want him to provide good opportunities for my children and good health for my parents. I need him to provide for my needs and some of my wants. I need more margin between the end of the month and the end of the money. Consequently, those are my prayers. And I pray such things for others. In short, I want him to restore the kingdom to me and those I love. What could be wrong with that?
I'll give those emerging apostles credit. They thought bigger:
Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
On my better days, my prayers hold similar aspirations. I pray for great awakening in my church and town; in my state and nation. I want Jesus to slay mental illness, desecrate poverty, restore deep-hearted love in people, bring multitudes of people into deep wholeness and otherwise save us from this present darkness. I want Jesus to "restore the kingdom to America," or at least start there. What could be wrong with that?
Those aren't wrong prayers or aspirations. Those are just my and maybe your agenda items for today and the way ahead. Jesus, however, is chiefly concerned about one thing—one primary act.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus wants me and you, and us together, to be completely changed into fire.
You will be my witnesses . . . that's what it means—to become illuminated with a life so transcendently powerful and a love so transformationally potent that we lose sight of our agendas and become caught up in and carried by the Holy Spirit into the very acts of Jesus—on earth as it is in heaven. This is not aspirational, philosophical, or theoretical. This is the real life for which we were made. All these things, our health maintenance and wealth management (or lack thereof) and the problems of our parents and our children, and mental illness and crime and poverty and gun violence and all the things that consume our daily lives—it is as if he is saying, I can handle all of these things if you will just do your one job: Be my witnesses.
Earlier he put it this way: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33).
Here's what we don't want to hear him say one day: "You had one job."
PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION
Abba Father! Lord Jesus! Holy Spirit!
We are so caught up in so many things. We, like our sister Martha, are worried and upset and anxious about so many things in our lives and world. Lead us to this transformational life of the only necessary thing—our one job–becoming your witnesses. I am weary of being my own witness; of witnessing to you and anyone else who will listen of all my concerns and agendas. I desire the transformation that comes from your life in me which becomes your witness through me. I want to be caught up in you, Jesus, and carried along by your Spirit, who alone can handle all these things. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory. Praying in Jesus's name, amen.
QUESTIONS
Can I get a witness? Or is it just me? Are you seeing the difference between you being your own witness and you becoming Jesus's witness? Are you seeing the difference between you "witnessing" about Jesus and Jesus witnessing through you?
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