“And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” For me, Colossians 3.17 has been a seminal text ever since I heard Dallas Willard say: “In the name of the Lord Jesus means with Jesus, in His power and for His purposes, and whatever you do in word or deed leaves out nothing.”
So, when I read David Kim’s 2025 Year-end letter (PERCEIVING GOD’S MOVEMENT), my inner being resounded: Yes, amen! This is a much-needed word to all who would join God as God makes all thing new. In particular, these words drew my attention:
“In our yearning to make our world better, we forget that God has been at this work for millennia. We unwittingly position ourselves as the authors and agents of redemption. We take something on ourselves that belongs uniquely to God and mistakenly place it in human hands, which is a weight we cannot hold.…“
“Our participation in God’s redemptive work does not begin with action but with discernment. We start with the slow, patient discipline of perceiving where the spirit might be moving in our lives and in the corners of the world. Without this spiritual attentiveness, faith and work can easily devolve into a sanctimonious version of self-determination….” (emphasis supplied)
“Redemptive work isn’t about finding or aligning ourselves with the right idea or industry, the right organization or social cause. It’s about something more fundamental, more intimate: Learning to trust the activity and pace of a God who keeps His promises in His time not ours.” (emphasis supplied)
Yes, I thought, David has courageously identified the source of the anemia and ineffectiveness of much “Christian ministry”. We have turned away from the indispensable: That we join God in what God is doing and wants done where we are. See Isaiah 30. All else will amount to nothing that really matters. See John, 15. 1-11.
The Way of Christ is that we live under the reign of the Lord Jesus as stewards of the creation, the part where we are. Primarily this is to seek the best for all concerned, those near us, (including us but not only us) by being a healing, nurturing, transforming presence wherever we are. See Isaiah 61.3. We aim at receiving the image of God renewed in us by keeping company with Jesus Himself as His disciples so that God may safely restore to us (with power in the Holy Spirit) our vocation as stewards of the creation.
We do what God puts in our hands to do. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. And no act of goodness is too small.
Unless who we are and what we do is the fruit of keeping company with Jesus Himself so that His words abide in us and we inhabit His love for those near us, our actions, at best, will amount to nothing that really matters. Jesus did not say: Apart from me you can do fairly-well. All the good that Martha desires must be informed and empowered by the way that Mary chose. See Luke 10.38-42. That is, for example, helping the oppressed does not make one a follower of Jesus. It is the other way around as He leads.
Jesus Himself is the Gospel. And God’s invitation is to life with Jesus, under his reign, in his power, for his purposes. As David says, this is not about finding the right idea or industry or the right organization or social cause. What is needed is more fundamental: Fruit from an intimate, interactive relationship with God the Father, through God the Son, in the power of God the Holy Spirit.
In the recently published WARDROBE AND RINGS (a Lenten Guide drawing on the work of The Inklings), Malcolm Guite captures what it is like to trust the long slow work of God. He points us to the experience of the Fellowship of the Ring in Lothlorien. There Frodo offers the ring to Lady Galadriel, the Queen of the Elves. And she is severely tempted to accept Frodo’s offer.
Instead, she declines, saying, “I will diminish and go onto the west and remain Galadriel.” Of herself and Celeborn (her husband) she says: “Together we fought the long defeat.” What I desire is “that what should be shall be.”
Guite explains: ”A chosen Christian life, refusing the false temptations and blandishments of power, can feel like a long defeat. But in our willingness to fight the long defeat, to make choices that diminish us, to see evil seem to wax so strong, and goodness seem so weak, to refuse the weapons of the enemy even for what seems a noble fight, that very renunciation is itself the victory, just as the cross is the only way to resurrection” (emphasis supplied), WARDROBE AND RINGS, p. 9.
As David says, making the world better is God’s project, not ours. It is God alone who truly knows what should be. And if “what should be shall be” through us, choices that diminish us and involve us in what may feel like a long defeat will often be the only truly life-giving option. As Jesus puts it: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Mark 8:34-35
Only by subordinating to God what we want and think best can we turn and do whatever we do in word or deed with Jesus, in his power and for his purposes. Without death-to-self, one simply cannot get there from here. But as we turn away from self-generated goodness and join God in what God is doing and wants done where we are, we experience a life that amounts to much more than sanctimonious self-determination.
It is like this: “The Kingdom of God may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but when everyone was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the good seed and then went away so that when the plants came up and bore seeds, weeds appeared as well. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; and the good seed are the children of the Kingdom.” See Matthew, 13.24-39.
We are born anew of imperishable seed, Jesus: The Seed of Abraham. See 1 Peter 1.23, Genesis 22.15-18, and Galatians 3.15-16. But there is this thing about a seed: “Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” John 12.23-24. If we would do whatever we do in word and deed with Jesus, in his power and for his purposes, we must follow him through death to self and to all those false hopes and disordered desires by which we would save our own lives, the lives of others, and the world.
But as we relinquish ourselves to God, like dandelion seeds blown by the wind, we are sown by the Spirit of Christ into the world, there to bear the very life of God. In this way alone does our work become God’s work in and through us. As Jesus taught Nicodemus: the wind blows where it chooses… So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. John 3.8-9
Our role in the world is to incarnate the WITH-GOD LIFE into our daily experience and the daily experience of people near us, “right where they live and work and cry and curse the darkness.” (Richard Foster) Then, but only then, will we see God’s Kingdom come and God’s will be done where we are on the earth as it is in Heaven.
As David says, this requires spiritual attentiveness, a capacity to discern how the Spirit of Christ is moving and inviting our participation in what God is doing and wants done where we are. Silence and solitude, centering prayer and listening prayer, are effective means to the spiritual attentiveness we need.
Through the practice of these spiritual disciplines, by grace, we are equipped to live our regular lives in attentive, obedient, allegiance to Jesus Himself without ceasing. Precisely in this way, we do whatever we do in word or deed in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. And we find that no act of goodness is too small.
Justin Campbell is an experienced trial lawyer in Houston, Texas and a longtime member and teacher at Tallowood Baptist Church. He and Margaret have been married over 40 years and have two adult children.