Several years ago, some co-workers dropped in without any warning at the weekly small group gathering for Christians in our company. We were pleasantly surprised, of course, and asked what prompted them to join our group. They shared about a Christian co-worker who had been their supervisor for a few months on an assignment in another province in the Philippines. They were amazed by the way this brother conducted himself — he was a person of honesty and integrity, he showed that he cared for his people and he pursued excellence in his work. They also noticed that he had been with our small group before they went together on that assignment and came to the conclusion that there must have been something in what we were doing together that influenced the life of this brother. They came to us because they wanted to be like him. They saw Jesus in and through his life.

When the subject of influencing the world for Christ comes up the first images that flash into the minds of many believers often include Christian celebrities who use their status to affect change, massive evangelism events and big churches with outreach programs. The Lord may use such highly visible means but He often works in many other invisible ways to reveal His Kingdom to a lost world.

We often judge the success of what we are doing by its visibility and size. But somehow God’s economy seems to work differently. Jesus often illustrated influence for His Kingdom using the picture of small seeds falling to the ground or being sown in a field, a lamp on a hillside or grains of salt on a plate of food (Matt. 5:13-16; 13:1-42). Perhaps Jesus is saying that it is in the small deeds of “ordinary” Christians in everyday life more than the big people, the big events and the big programs that He and His Kingdom will be revealed.