Lead a Quiet Life?

I just started reading in Thessalonians a few days ago and this verse jumped out at me. After a whole bunch of introduction and prologue (borrring..how do you preach that stuff??) in this letter, Paul finally starts giving the Thessalonians some instruction in chapter 4.

11Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

This is interesting advice considering the fact that Paul knows all about the spiritual gifts and the miraculous and spectacular ways God can reveal himself to people.

I've been around Pentecostal Christian ministry for a bit now, and if there is one thing I've noticed about us it is that we have a deep desire to be used of in miraculous spiritual gifts like healing and prophesy and raising people from the dead. This is, of course, a completely Biblical desire, but I believe there are hidden consequences of focusing on power too much:

(1) You overestimate the power of miracles toward making disciples of Christ.

• Jesus himself said that a wicked generation requires a sign (Luke 11:29). When we try to bypass faith by making God do a trick for us, we attempt to make ourselves gods. This is fake faith; therefore it is not pleasing to God.
• Jesus also said that miracles often do NOT necessarily work on people unwilling to come to repentance (Luke 16:19-31). A lot of pentecostal environments have this false belief that if they can just get God to give them a word of knowledge for someone or the gift of healing, people would come to Jesus in droves. It's just not true. Miracles confirm faith more than they increase it. The battle is spiritual, not physical.
• The truth is people don't remain unbelievers because a Christian hasn't come along and healed them of their asthma yet. They don't believe because they love to sin. Perhaps when they are ready to repent and become a disciple, God will use me to heal them of their asthma to confirm His faithfulness. This healing is contingent on information that the average christian does not have (only God looks at the heart). Thus, our goal should not be to get more power but to become more obedient.
  

(2) You underestimate the power of faithful obedience in simple, everyday situations.

• There can be such a focus on trying to manipulate the Spirit into doing something for you (and the motive is often selfish), that you can forget to do the things you already know how to do...like loving your family, working your job as unto the Lord, being nice for crying out loud, etc. This is how we get charismatic evangelists who can tell a whole wheelchair section to stand up...but can't even properly run their households. By the way, the bible calls those people "worse than unbelievers."
• In order to have influence in someone's life to lead them closer to Jesus, they need to have your respect (v. 12). So the question becomes how do you live in such a way that earns the respect of the unbelievers in your life? Do you have to yell at them in tongues when they have an itchy throat in hopes that they will be healed to win their respect? Do you need to raise their relative from the dead at a funeral to win their respect? I would argue that winning the respect of unbeliever is far simpler than that, but not necessarily easier. Winning respect takes time...winning respect requires patience and persevering faith, but it is way more effective than becoming a show stoppers. People don't respect show stoppers, they fear them.
  
• True religion is visiting the widow and the orphan. Any Christian can do that, but not all are willing because no orphan visitor will be recognized or complimented for their ministry. When you are faithful in the everyday little things...like doing your job, loving your family, serving the helpless, you are living as salt and light. This is a life worthy of respect.
  

Loving power more than people is lust. Let's start working on our faithfulness and THEN expect God to reveal himself through miracles.