Movers and Shakers?

This year in our Young Adults Ministry at McKinney, all of our young adults are reading and studying through the New Testament together. We're jumping around a little bit, so a couple of weeks ago we were reading through Matthew, and something in the Sermon on the Mount caught my eye.

In 4:23, Matthew describes how "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them. Large crowds followed Him..."

Jesus changed the world by spending his time with 11 uneducated blue-collar workers, and a teeming throng of needy people.

If I was going to start a worldwide movement, I'd find the movers and the shakers. I'd find the people with influence, power, resources, and talent. There were very few of those men involved in Jesus' early ministry, and one of them was a man named Judas Iscariot.

It's amazing Jesus got anything done. He spent His whole ministry with the "straw people" - the people who suck everything out of you. But notice who it is that regularly bring their friends to Jesus. It's the destitute people. The rich, powerful, influential guys are the ones who come by night.

I spend a good majority of my ministry time with those I think are the "movers and shakers." But I wonder if a lot more moving and shaking would take place if I took the time to invest in the people who need it most.