Picture a church service where a minister is praying for the sick. Hands are lifted. Some people reach out in faith. Someone lays hands on a man who walked in expecting a miracle.

Naturally, our eyes go to the one standing in front. We watch the minister, listen to the words, and, almost without noticing, begin to attach the outcome to the person praying.

But there is a question we must never stop asking: Who is really doing the work?

In John 14:12, Jesus said that whoever believes in Him will do the works He did, and even greater works, “because I am going to the Father.”

Notice what He is saying. These works would continue after He had returned to the Father. Yet the power behind them would not originate in human ability. The works continue because the One who began them has not stopped. Jesus is still the Doer.

This changes how we see the believer. We are not freelancers trying to reproduce, centuries later, what Jesus once did. We believe in Him, we are united with Him, and He works through us.

Paul paints this union in 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Though we are many, we are one bread and one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” The immediate context is the Lord’s Supper, but the truth reaches further. Everyone who belongs to Christ shares one identity in Him. We are many, yet one Body, and no believer’s life can be separated from that reality.

This is where our understanding has to shift. When we gather in His name, we must not become so aware of the person at the front that we lose sight of Jesus.

The pastor is human. The bishop is human. Every minister has limits. But the Lord we believe in has none. What a minister cannot do by his own strength, Jesus does by His power. The hands may be human, but our confidence is not in the hands. It is in the Lord who works through them.

This is not an invitation to exalt the one ministering. It is a call to recognise Christ at work in His Body. The Church is not merely a community that remembers what Jesus once did. It is the Body through which His work continues today.

So the next time you gather with other believers, or find yourself praying for someone, remember that the question is not only who is standing before you or whose hands are on the sick. The greater question is this: Do you recognise Jesus as the One in whom your faith rests?

He has not become less powerful by returning to the Father. Our part is to believe in Him, understand our union with Him, and act in faith.

Jesus is still the Doer. We are His Body, and He works through us.

Reflect on these:

When I pray for others, where does my confidence actually rest?
Do I ever credit or blame the minister for what only Christ can do?
What would change if I prayed for someone today fully aware that Jesus is the One working?