Kingdom Comeনমুনা

PRAYER:

God, I want to bless others because you have blessed me. Show me how I can do that today and give me the courage to follow through.

READING:

Imagine you’re scrolling through your social media feed and you come across a post that really fires you up. It points out something that is terribly wrong in the world and your heart is motivated to get involved and do something. So, you share the post, adding a few words of your own to express how outraged you are that no one cares enough to do anything. And then… you move on with your life feeling better about yourself because you got involved. You don’t go anywhere. You don’t have a real conversation with anyone. You don’t actually do anything. But you feel like you did. 

Sound familiar? This kind of engagement now has a name. It’s called “slacktivism” and it’s officially in the English dictionary. It’s a shortcut—and a short circuit—to our desire to make the world a better place. That’s not to say that sharing important ideas and articles has no purpose. But sharing information is only one step of a bigger journey. And if we satisfy our desire to get involved before we’ve ever really gotten involved, then we end up missing out on a significant part of what God wants to do in and through us. It’s like going to your favorite Italian restaurant and filling up on breadsticks before the entree hits the table. You’re missing out on the meal you truly want. 

God is calling us to be far more than “slacktivists.” In the verses above, from the book of Genesis, Abram (soon to be renamed Abraham) is told that God is going to bless him, but then God immediately tells him he will “be a blessing.” It’s a gift with a purpose attached to it. God blesses Abram, so he will bless others. 

This is a running theme in the New Testament as well. Paul picks up this theme in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7. He writes that God brings comfort, at least in part, so we would comfort others. It seems that in our culture we might be tempted to rewrite Paul’s words, as if he were saying, “You have been comforted by God so you can share a post about how there are a lot of people in the world who need to be comforted and letting folks know how terrible you think it is that they don’t care.”

Don’t take the bait. It’s not enough to simply “retweet” someone’s outrage about what’s wrong. God calls us to be part of the solution, which is harder and messier but significantly more rewarding. 

If you’ve put your faith in a God who didn’t hesitate to get his hands dirty, and even bloody, to come after you, then it only makes sense that we would be asked to do the same for others. 

Through Jesus, God has made so many blessings available to us, but he has also given us a calling and a purpose—to bless the world. We have been called to generously pour out our time, resources, and energy to partner with God to bring healing and renewal to this broken world. We’ve been blessed to bless and changed to bring change.

REFLECTION:

It’s possible your life might be the only life-giving message of Jesus that someone hears. What is your life saying about what’s important to you? What is your life communicating about what’s important to God? 

Take some time today and journal about the above questions. What’s important to you? Ask God to reveal the areas in your heart that get in the way of your life reflecting what you truly treasure.