You too can be a bigger influence on others than you realise. Simply listening to people and encouraging them at church can be influential. Your kindness to those who are sick will be remembered. Your involvement in teaching children at church might bear eternal fruit. Paul constantly encourages Christians to build one another up; you work in this direction matter more than you think.

It is easy to be impressed by the giants of the Christian faith. We read in the Bible of people like Elijah who stood up to evil kings, of Moses who stood before Pharaoh, and of Paul who testified before rulers and hostile Jewish governments. We know of people like Martin Luther and John Knox who stood firm in difficult times, speaking the truth to power. We are glad that God has used these people. Their stories are memorable. But we are simply not like that.

Is there anything useful we can really do for the work of God’s kingdom? Even if we feel inadequate, if we are not well-connected to powerful people, and if we are not impressive preachers or anything? Well, of course! The vast majority of God’s work in the world is done through ordinary Christians, people who in the eyes of the world are no-one special.

Think more widely of what we read in the Bible. The course of history was changed by people like a servant girl in the household of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. A godly landowner named Boaz showed kindness to a foreign immigrant which led to the family line of Jesus. Many people in Acts hosted the church in their houses.

We see this in Acts 8 as well.

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