40 Days to Change the World?

If a worldwide poll was conducted today with the question, “Do you think our world needs change?” I’m confident a resounding majority would wholeheartedly reply, “Yes!” Then if the next question was, “What needs to change and how?” I would predict millions of varied responses and solutions to the world’s problems. There is no doubt that our world is bleeding with hurts, wounds and unresolved conflict.

Thinking about our worlds and reading Acts 1 I halted at verse 3. The more I focused on this verse the more I realized Jesus’ strategic plan to change the world:

“During the forty days after He suffered and died, He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and He proved to them in many ways that He was actually alive. He talked to them about the Kingdom of God.”

I wonder what my response would have been during those 40 days after Jesus’ death and resurrection? Realizing Pilate, Herod, and all the political power players on earth got it wrong I may have engaged in some strong talks with the religious establishment. Perhaps I’d point out the error of their ways and maybe even stopped by for coffee with the movers and shakers of that day.

But not Jesus, His 40-day plan to change the world was to go to His doubting disciples who had no spiritual influence, no political clout, and no financial resources to turn the world right. Jesus’ method seems madness to most of the play- books of the popular influencers of our day.

Yet the fact that you are reading this blog shows the effectiveness of His 40 day plan to bring in a new Kingdom. A Kingdom that brings the deepest impact of transformational change in the human heart like nothing else can.

Here’s Jesus’ plan:

1) Reveal His Resurrection to His followers proving everything He taught is true. A truth that shows through His death and resurrection they have been brought to the Father and they are forever His beloved children.

2) His Kingdom is not physical but spiritual. Jesus came to take over hearts with His Spirit of forgiveness, healing and love. His Kingdom is not temporal-based of the things of this world-but rather eternal coming down from His thrown in Heaven.

After 40 days of seeing and listening to the plan, His followers owned it and began praying into it. Next step a 10-day prayer meeting and “The Plan” was sealed in their hearts by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. As a result the world saw the Resurrected Jesus in these disciples and transformational change began to happen one heart at a time.

His plan is the one and only plan that will heal the bleeding wounds of our broken world. Our world needs to see the signs of the Resurrected King Jesus in His followers.

I ask myself does the world see in me any convincing signs that I have been raised from the dead in Christ? Do they see the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control from my heart? Do others see Jesus’ Kingdom power flowing through my weakness by His Holy Spirit?

Most certainly I want to see change in our hurting world. I may even have some answers, but I realize it must first take place in my heart and the heart’s of all who claim to follow Him.