THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: - Vital Christianity

69As this is good news for us ordinary people, we gather as followers of the Crucified One,willing to have God open our eyes to discover that amid the unseen workings of the world andunseen people, there is a power bringing aboutIt is easy to become discouraged when you have worked so hard to do something and ithas turned out to seem so small and insignificant. It would have been easy for the disciples tohave felt that way about the kingdom of God. Here is a carpenter-turned-preacher speaking invillages in a minor Roman province. This is not very impressive when you look at the bigpicture. Yet within a single generation after Christ's death, Christianity had spread all over theRoman Empire and beyond to India in the East, Ethiopia to the South, and to Spain in the West.What starts small becomes large. The kingdom of God begins as a small and insignificantseed or a little lump of yeast but grows to become large and powerful. Mustard seeds vs. trees,tiny lumps of yeast vs. large loaves of bread. That’s the comparison and the contrast.We all get discouraged at times. What is your source of discouragement at this time?What is the mountain that seems insurmountable?There are a couple of sayings that fit these parables:"Little is much when God is in it."“God plus one is a majority.”A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, used the followingverse as his text when he began this missionary enterprise:"Who despises the day of small things" (Zec 4:10).We all face the temptation to give up when we see the tiny mustard seed or lump of yeast,thinking that's all there will be. But the struggling missionary enterprise that Simpson started isnow made up of more than three million devoted followers of Jesus.Most of life is ordinary, consisting of going to work, eating, spending time with familyand friends, going to church, etc. All of these are important to God.We must value little things!APPLICATION