Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21
“Frequently in social life many become mere spectators the face of serious problems that are affecting them, their children, or their social environment. They have the mistaken notion that others should be the ones to take the initiative, to stop evil and do good. They content themselves with sterile complaint. A Christian cannot behave in this passive way, because he knows that he should be leaven within society. In the midst of human affairs, ‘what the soul is to the body, Christians are in the world. Such is the place assigned by God to them and they cannot desert it.'”
Francis Fernandez in In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, volume 3 (London: Scepter, 1990) 364-365.
Today I fly to Nashville, Tennessee, to meet up with a brother than is no passive spectator but aims to serve as active leaven. We will fellowship and then I will head to Louisville, Kentucky, to speak at the Missio Nexus conference on Wednesday.
Notice the wisdom of Fernandez today.
Think of the people you know that sit as passive spectators to the Christian movement. These people excel at offering sterile complaints. Perhaps like “armchair quarterbacks” the cheer on and criticize those on the field.
Don’t let that be you. Be active leaven.
Make it your aim, like my friend Randy Bury whom I will meet up with today, to lift up God’s workers, to encourage them, support them, and ask them ways you can pray for and assist them.
Do this and you play your role.
Here Fernandez concludes with the famous ancient letter of Mathetes to Diognetus: “What the soul is to the body, Christians are in the world. Such is the place assigned by God to them and they cannot desert it.”
Serve as a life-giving and generous soul that actively lifts others!