Reading: Matthew 11, Highlighted reading Matthew 11:1-19
How do you decide if you are doing the right thing? This is one of the challenges of any Christian ministry where how we judge success is a difficult question. Jesus is really asked the same sort of question here. His answer is look at the impact of the ministry on others – look at the transformed lives!
It’s too easy to judge success by being busy. Instead we should be asking what is the impact on the lives of thsoe we meet – how are they being transformed in their discipleship by what they see in me?
I was encouraged today by this passage. Jesus seems to point to the way we may find ourselves being evaluated by others (criticised even) but reminds us of the outworking of wisdom through action.
‘For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”’
But there is no speedy timescale implied here?- It seems this ‘proving’ isn’t always immediately visible and requires us to trust and listen in the waiting time…