Feeling Outnumbered?

We are approaching that time of year when the “snow birds” return to the north country and families prepare their vacation plans.  Both of these movements directly affect church attendance.  Sometimes that fact has a way of making our spirits sag.  I hope this piece of information will lift your spirits the way it did mine.
The Conservative Jewish film critic and commentator Michael Medved likes to play a game at Hollywood parties.  He asks the Hollywood types how many people they think go to church every week in America.  “No one I know,” they often laugh.  “No, seriously,” Medved insists.  “Guess.”  Usually they guess about 1%.  The highest estimate he has ever heard is 10%.  The correct answer on any given weekend is 43%.  That is more Americans than watch the Super Bowl on television, TV’s biggest yearly audience.
It is typical of Satan to make Christians feel inferior and insignificant when we are actually a huge force in America.  The Apostle Paul told Timothy, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).  When we as Christians feel weak and timid we know where it is coming from—the Enemy.  But even if our numbers were much smaller than they actually are that is no reason to feel intimidated by our Adversary.  God has never depended upon a majority of anyone or anything to get the job done.  On one occasion He even reduced an army of fighting men from 32,000 to 300 before leading them to engage an army of over 120,000.  The reason?  Here it is in His own words: “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into your hands….that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her”  (Judges 7:2).  The recurring theme throughout Scripture is “Not by might, nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord.”  The battle belongs to the Lord, not to us.  What He demands form us is not numbers but commitment to His cause.
So the next time you have an opportunity to express your Christian point of view or share your faith with someone at work, don’t worry about being in the minority.  That may or may not be true.  It doesn’t matter.  God always has this interesting habit of using the little to overcome the much and the weak to put to flight  the strong.