Raising My Reality To Match My Theology

Jesus said in John 14:12: “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.” That is an amazing statement. I heard Mark Batterson say this once, "we [all try to] make our theology conform to our reality. You have probably heard of the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson could not intellectually digest the miracles in the gospels so he extracted them. Everything that was left he compiled into his own version of the Bible called the Jefferson Bible. It’s a miracle-less Bible."

The truth is, I believe with all my heart that when Jesus says something, it is true! That is theology. The reality is, my experiences do not match what Jesus said in John 14:12. I would be thrilled if I was simply doing the amazing, wonderful, miraculous things that Jesus did. It is mind-blowing to me to think I could actually do greater things. But since there is this incredible gap between my theology and my reality, I have a real temptation to lower my theology to match my experiences. I start trying to excuse why I don't see greater things. I start trying to convince myself that Jesus didn't really mean greater things when He said greater things.


But I am doing spiritual warfare against that stronghold. I have decided that, rather than lowering my theology to match my reality, I want to seek God until my reality matches my theology. In other words, I want to raise my reality instead of lowering my theology. Thanks Mark for that amazing challenge. I hope you will accept that challenge as well.