Would it ever enter your mind that you could come to the end of your life, look back, and say truthfully that you have done greater works in your life than Jesus did in his? Apparently it should.
This morning I was reading John 14-17 in preparation for a session that I’m leading at Verge Ministry’s Leader Advance that starts tonight and this statement by Jesus jumped out at me in a fresh way;
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” (14:12)
Apparently Jesus wants us to live with the belief that our lives would be full of works even greater than his. That’s a pretty huge challenge to a body of believers the majority of whom’s greatest works are being nice people and going to church a couple times a week.
In my experience we have an incredible propensity to tame down and over-qualify Jesus’ words when he says things like this. Let’s resist that temptation. Let’s press into the difficulty of statements like “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do,” and, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do”. Let’s earnestly desire and labor to experience the reality of those promises rather than bending them to fit our current experience.
I for one want to come to the end of my life and have Jesus say, “See! I told you you would.” That, my friends, would be amazing, and if our God has anything to say about it every Christ-follower’s life is meant to be exactly amazing.
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