Jesus: “…even greater things than these…”
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Usually when I hear folks mention this passage it’s with an attitude of “not sure what he meant, because that’s impossible.” I, on the other hand, seem to find Jesus’ words quite amazing and yet very believable. There are two reasons for this.
One, there are plenty of miracles occuring today. Most of us sitting in our wealth, independent society in the USA have not been privileged to experience the miraculous hand of God in people’s lives, quite the same as it was at work in Jesus’ time. The academics in our society have explained miracles away as a thing of the past, and for us with all our modern technology we don’t see much of a need for a miracle to occur here.
Take a short trip to a great many other places throughout the world and you’ll find out pretty quickly (whether you believe people or not is our choice), that miracles certainly seem to be happening today. I won’t go much into this, because I think we have some strong opinions on these things, but I would argue, there are a lot of folks out there that will testify to God being at work through physical miracles of healing and more.
Second, and this is one that applies to most of us, I think we have each been given plenty of resources to do “greater things” in our lifetimes. I’m not talking about dying on the cross, or literally raising someone out of a grave, but many of the other things are miracles we can help make happen through donation. You could easily feed 10,000 people a meal in your lifetime. You can provide healing treatment for lepers, donate blood or bone marrow so noblemen’s sons might live. We have a great many resources in our midst, let’s make Jesus’ words a reality.
[...] Each of us had a spiritual belief of sorts. John wasn’t pushy about christianity although he did mentioned his spiritual belief of having Jesus as a way to talk to God. I believe any of us can have the same access to God that Jesus did. He did say: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” [...]
Right on. I see miracles all the time. Most people do. They just don’t recognize them as such and forget them quickly.
Hey, i came across this while having a debate with my friend about the possibility of us doing greater things than Jesus. He thought i was nearing on blasphemy but in this lifetime i will be persecuted. I like the heart you had when you wrote this. Please let me return the favour of being spiritually moved by showing you my blogs i wrote. They are on my local youthgroups website. http://www.eternalyouthonline.org
Favorite quote by Jesus by the way, “I tell you the truth…..”
Love you guys….whoever you are.
Jesus words about those who believe Him doing greater things is very true and applicable. Jesus was and still is our teacher/rabbi. In life a student can read / applying the principles taught by the teacher and eventually gain knowledge that surpasses what his teacher could do. Similarly if a Christian applies the teachings of Jesus as presented in the bible he should be able to achieve more and greater things but seeing these will depend on the nature of greater things one is looking for