Have you thought about all your possibilities to have influence?
By Dean Collins
I was reading in Numbers and Romans this morning. Thank God for Romans! I’m glad my daily reading plan always includes a New Testament passage. If I was stuck in Leviticus and Numbers for a month, I don’t think I could write every day. But today I noticed something that got me thinking about two things.
He knows us by name
First, I noticed that God knows us by name. In just the first chapter of Numbers, 26 names are mentioned: the names of the 12 sons of Jacob that became the names of the 12 tribes of Israel; the names a person in each tribe God told Moses to appoint as its leader; and then you add the names of Moses and Aaron.
What follows is a census taken as each tribe counted their members. There is scholarly debate about the numbers, and I’m not tackling that today. My point is that God paid attention to the names of people. All through Scripture there are people whose names we know, men and women called by God to do something. Sometimes we don’t know the names of the individuals who played an important role ; we just know what they did. I think we can be OK with the fact that some people appear anonymously, since Jesus said the focus should not be about us, so much so that the right hand doesn’t need to know what the left hand is doing. But I think we can assume God knows the name of the person whose hands are referenced, even if we don’t.
In Romans, Paul lists 29 names in the final paragraphs of his epistle. He commended each one for something important to Paul and/or the ministry of the church.
He values our work
This leads to the second thing I noticed in these two chapters. Individuals are important to God and critical to his kingdom purposes. Each one of these people had a job to do. It may have been to lead a tribe, or it might have been to open their home for a church gathering. Whatever their task, it was essential for God’s purpose to advance. Some in the Book of Numbers were given the task of counting, and some were called to battle. Others in Numbers were assigned to pack and unpack the tabernacle or carry it when they traveled. Some in Romans were called to give money, some to offer their homes for meetings, and at least one was Paul’s secretary or administrative assistant who transcribed Paul’s letter. No person or job is insignificant in God’s kingdom enterprise. And no individual is unnoticed by God. His love and mercy is for each of us.
No individual is unnoticed by God.
So what about the influence of our lives? It’s hard to measure influence. I can’t nor need I bother to evaluate the commitment level of the Christians in the world today. But according to worldwide research by Pew Research Center there were 2.3 billion Christians in the world in 2015, which is just under a third of the world’s population. You have to consider that those 29 names in Romans directly impacted the spread of the gospel and the understanding of God that still informs and motivates billions of believers today, all these centuries later. That’s influence!
Tim Elmore was quoted in a 2017 Forbes article that reported sociologists’ findings that one introvert influences up to 10,000 people in their lifetime. I don’t know if that can be known for sure, but consider the ways we have impact and influence. You might be the person who processes someone’s paycheck. That one transaction has far-reaching effect. You might be the person who removed the cancer and extended the life of someone who helped hundreds or even thousands of people through their job, the students they taught, or the disciples they developed. You might be the entrepreneur who launched just one business that employed 25 or 100 or 1000 people or more and created financial stability for families and whole regions of a country. I could go on and on.
He wants to work through us
Every person matters to God, which translates to every person around us also matters to God. Which leads me to mention how Paul ends his letter to the Romans. In Paul’s closing thoughts he says to watch out for and stay away from people who are divisive and put obstacles in the way of others coming to or growing in their faith. These people who teach falsely and mislead others are prone to flattery and are obsessed with their own interests over the interest of those around them. They are destructive to God’s kingdom.
Paul gives us all specific instructions that will determine our impact and influence: “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.”
What would happen if we just followed this one instruction? Might our impact be greater? Would God be able to accomplish more good through us? Would fights in our families, churches, and communities decrease? I suspect we know the answer.
And then Paul reminds us who is in charge and what happens in the future: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Be assured that God knows you by name and notices the things you do out of your love for him. Always and anytime we can be leveraged for God or for the enemy of God. Let’s trust in the grace of the Lord Jesus to use us for God’s purposes and ultimately for his glory!
Your time with God’s Word
Numbers 1:1-16, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 46-50; Romans 16:17-20, 25-27 ESV
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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
