Big Picture

No idea, noble or obscure, will impact others unless that idea is acted upon. ACT is our focus in this month’s edition of HIGH CALLING.

James 2:18 says, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” It is not enough to have an idea or a dream. It has been said that a dream without action is only a wish. The world has no shortage of dreams or wishes. But the world certainly has a major shortage of those noble ideas that are divinely inspired and connected to a burning passion for seeing those ideas fulfilled in an action plan which will ultimately impact humanity for all eternity. Consider a well-known story about a famous evangelist…

Perhaps the line most frequently attributed to Dwight L. Moody (and spoken by his character in the only film on Moody’s life) is the famous quotation: “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.”

In fact, Moody did not originate the line. Henry Varley, a British revivalist who had befriended the young American in Dublin, recalled that in 1873 Moody asked him to recount words they had spoken in private conversation a year earlier, just before Moody’s return to the United States. Varley provides this account (as recorded in Paul Gericke’s Crucial Experiences in the Life of D.L. Moody):

During the afternoon of the day of conference Mr. Moody asked me to join him in the vestry of the Baptist Church. We were alone, and he recalled the night’s meeting at Willow Park and our converse the following morning.

“Do you remember your words?” he said.

I replied, “I well remember our interview, but I do not recall any special utterance.”

“Don’t you remember saying, ‘Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him?’ “

“Not the actual sentence,” I replied.

“Ah,” said Mr. Moody, “those were the words sent to my soul, through you, from the Living God. As I crossed the wide Atlantic, the boards of the deck of the vessel were engraved with them, and when I reached Chicago, the very paving stones seemed marked with ‘Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.’ Under the power of those words I have come back to England, and I felt that I must not let more time pass until I let you know how God had used your words to my inmost soul.” (copied)

Executing or acting upon an idea separates the men from the boys, the heroes from the zeroes, the dreams from the wishes.

After God reveals a vision, He always calls us to act. He never reveals something to us which He also wants to keep hidden. If you’ve walked with the Lord any amount of time, you know He reveals things so we will DO something about those things. We must act and we must act in God’s timing. God is not concerned about time — “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). But God is VERY concerned about timing. Why? Because timing is dependent on our hearing Him with such clarity that there is no doubt when some idea is to be acted upon. It builds our faith. It causes us to block out all other voices except the voice of God.

What has He revealed to you? Do you have a plan to ACT? Why not? If you don’t know what to do, have you shared your idea with anyone else? Could it be that He wants you to bring others into the vision so they can experience His supernatural work and power? A dream without action is only a wish.

“Lord, this day, give us such a burning passion to hear You clearly and to act in Your divine timing. Keep us from presumption, but also keep us from procrastination. In the name of an all-powerful Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.”