Sometimes “1” is all it takes.

It’s a legitimate number to God.

In the annual National Prayer Breakfast in 1984, President Reagan told the following story.

In the fourth century, Telemarchus, an obscure monk from modern day Turkey felt God ask him to travel to Rome. As he entered the city he found himself born along by the crowd as it entered the Coliseum.

Disturbed by the energy of the massive crowd he watched a fight to the death between two gladiators. The crowd screamed its approval at each warrior’s death. Making his way to the fence surrounding the ‘killing sands’ he jumped over. As he pushed his way between the fighters, he began to cry out, “Stop! In the Name of Christ, stop!” He continued to interrupt the duel until, at the urging of the crowd, one of the gladiators ran him through with his sword.

As he lay dying, Telemarchus’s last words spoken were, “In the Name of Christ, stop.”

Something strange happened to the stunned crowd. Quietly over the next half hour, they began leaving the Coliseum  until it emptied. Three days later the Emperor, by decree, cancelled the ‘sport’ of men killing each other for the lust of the people.

One voice, raised to defy an ungodly sport.

We’re told that one voice doesn’t matter – that it doesn’t matter or make a difference. Multitudes fail to vote … believing this. We often see something on TV which triggers an urge to turn it to something more spiritually friendly, but we don’t. After all, that action by just one person won’t make any difference.

But this is not a political devotional. The same mindset affects other areas of our lives.

We succumb to the losing battle of the of our personal budget because ‘the nation’s budget is so messed up that it won’t change anything by me being careful on a my level.’ We turn a deaf ear and blind eye to the plight of the starving, the orphaned, the aborted because ‘I’m just me. I can’t change the world.’

We may not make an immediate difference, yet in each case, we are, being changed personally by ignoring God’s voice prompting us to do what we can do.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what is right.” James doesn’t let us off the hook either: “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” James 4:17 NLT

“One” is a legitimate number. It’s a number that’s changed our world many times.