I Have Made Christ’s Agenda My Own
If you’re like me, you long for and pray toward the soon return of Jesus Christ. My heart resounds with the prayer in Revelation 22:20, “Amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” But as earnestly as I pray for Jesus to come back, I recognize that we have lots to do to prepare for that glorious Day.
Our King has given us a wide-sweeping Kingdom agenda, and every day you and I need to carry his transformational message into our world.
Whenever I pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” I wheel out the front door and do everything I can to bring his heavenly kingdom down to earth.
I envision a world where divisions are healed, families are united, communities are restored, churches have influence, and hearts are transformed by the Spirit.
It’s what I have been saved for – to know Christ, and to make him known.
I want to prepare the way for my King. I want to be about his business so that when he comes in clouds of glory, he will see that I have been about his work. I have made Christ’s agenda my own; my calling is to carry his message of redemption as far as my wheelchair can take me.
I partner every day with my Savior to make “The kingdoms of this world [become] the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” The most important square footage in the world is not the space underneath my wheelchair; it is wherever Christ and his kingdom is not yet known.
I’m especially excited about carrying this life-transforming message to people like me who have disabilities.
When God rescued me from my own sin, he poured out innumerable blessings on me, and my heart’s desire is to pass on those blessings to other people with disabilities around the world. I cannot bear to think that their suffering might only be a dark omen of worse suffering to come if they don’t have a chance to hear and respond to the salvation message of Jesus. But it doesn’t stop there.
Eighty percent of the people in the world who live with disability are struggling against abject poverty and hopelessness. In developing nations, children with disabilities are regularly denied access to education. In the current global recession, homelessness, joblessness, and even suicide is becoming commonplace among people with disabilities.
These individuals and their families need to experience the transforming love of Jesus, and so, the team at Joni and Friends and I work hard to “redeem” their plight, giving practical help and spiritual hope in Christ.
God’s Kingdom agenda also includes fighting for justice. My own state of California proposed AB-2223, a bill which exonerates parents from criminal charges related to the infanticide of their child up to 7 days after the birth.
This bill is a blight on our land; my heart grieves to think of the many infants with disabilities who are killed, and their only crime is their disabling condition.
And so, Kingdom-minded people “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all” (Proverbs 31:8). And those rights include infants with disabilities.
This is how I am ‘pushing’ God’s redemptive message out into this dark world.
Will you do the same in your world? Will you make Christ known in your sphere of influence? For you, it could be a college campus, an urban workplace, or in a suburban neighborhood. Wherever God has planted you, together let’s prepare the way for our King and spread his redemptive love far and wide!
Want to learn how to do that? Then, join me and a host of other presenters at this year’s Wilberforce Weekend sponsored by The Colson Center. Learn how to be God’s agent of transformation in your community. Sign up today…and celebrate what you have been saved to do in your world!
-Joni Eareckson Tada
Wilberforce Weekend 2022: Life Redeemed
