I enjoyed the Global Outreach Service yesterday. I trust that you did too. I was deeply impacted, motivated and exhorted by the testimonies given to us. One of the challenges that I felt the Holy Spirit deliver to me through the words of Al, Joanna, & Jackie (those who served or will serve oversees) was to live for more than my little world and my inflated self. That may seem a little severe to you, but regardless, it’s true that I constantly fight the most fundamental spiritual battle in my life called ‘selfishness.’
It’s far too easy to put my needs above others instead of others above myself. Isn’t that what Jesus did for us? He put our needs above His own. Of course, God doesn’t have any needs. But when God became a man through Jesus, He was born with needs, a need for food, comfort, oxygen, energy and life. So when Jesus was born to die for the sins of the world, He came to put our needs above His own. He needed life as a man. But He denied that in order to save us from death. And He met the greatest need–forgiveness and salvation from sin and Hell—for not just His generation, but for all generations to come and for every nation around the globe.
Jesus didn’t live for just the world around Him, but He lived His life to meet the greatest need for every nation of the world present and future. And while it was impossible for Jesus to have an inflated view of Himself, because He is God, yet He emptied Himself of that right and privilege to give up His life for us and save us.
What a mission & model for us. Don’t live for your little world or (in your mind) BIG self (Rom. 12:3). Live with the mission of Christ, live with the nations in view and the need for them to hear the Gospel. Remember John 17:18? “Just as I have been sent into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
Yesterday we heard from those who have been sent into the world far far away. And yet it should be all of our joyful mission to be a part of this sending mission in a unique God given way…(overseas or across the street)…for some of you it means verbal evangelism, for others, lots of prayers, for others, it means giving money towards missionaries, or it means hosting them for meals and getting to know them. However God has gifted you and wired your personality, we all should have hearts on fire for the lost in the world. We should all feel moved with love towards sinful, dark, lost, and perishing people, because this was Christ’s mission and He lives in us.
And I find this mission to live for the Gospel to penetrate the whole world as something greatly freeing from ourselves and energizing for our life.
In John 4:34, Jesus says after talking with a Samaritan woman and offering her eternal life in Him (He practiced relational and conversational evangelism), He gives this statement:
“my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” This statement has revolutionized my view of missions.
First, Jesus is saying that the energizing fuel (“my food”) in His life is talking to other people (like the sinful Samaritan woman) about Himself and the life quenching eternal life that He offers them.
Second, Jesus is saying that His energizing fuel is to actually accomplish that work, which was for Him, dyeing on a Cross for our sins.
Third, Jesus describes this energizing work in intimate terms of this close obedient relationship He has with His Father and a discernment of what exactly His Father has sent Him to do.
Apply this to us. We are certainly not Jesus, but Jesus as a man does exemplify how we ought to live as the human beings that God intended for us to be.
And I have personally experienced what Jesus is talking about in John 4:34. I feel most energized when being able to tell other people about Jesus. It’s odd that instead of feeling drained after sharing the Gospel with folks, I feel energized because it’s food.
Somehow and in some way spreading the Gospel to the world to seek the greatest rescue mission ever imaginable is a kind of energy boost to our soul. Why? For one, because the Holy Spirit is empowering you to do that. But secondly, spiritual exercise brings you to life, makes you healthy, gets your spiritual blood flowing, so to speak, and it’s reinvigorating.
We all love food and crave it to survive. We even seek its taste. Is perusing Gospel conversations, Gospel service, Gospel prayers, & missionary support a type of food that you love, you crave and you desire? Is it food to you?
I hope it is. We have purpose in Christ, all the purpose that we need. Yes, we don’t need to do anything for Jesus in order to receive ultimate purpose because we are loved by God. That is purpose enough. BUT there is a purpose underneath of that which God designed us for: & that is to share the wonderful news of Jesus with dyeing souls.
Watch a news clip of a young child who was on the brink of being stolen into human trafficking but was rescued by a heroic stranger and it will bring you to tears. Listen to a news story of a young mother or father who was on the brink of death but doctors saved him and it will bring your emotions to life. Watch or listen to a rescue story of hikers that were air-lifted from the rocky crags of a high peak in a hyporthermic state and you will find that their dethawing salvation warms your heart too and does something to your emotions that lifts you out of the comfort of your home and slouching on your couch.
And this is what our mission to be the rescue team, to be the CPR squad, & to be ready as the first responder’s community should do to us. It is deeply motivating, encouraging, energizing, and it lifts us up and out of our apathy and spiritual slumber.
That is how I felt when listening to Al, Joanna and Jacky on Sunday. I felt like I want to be a part of this rescue mission by joining team Church (the Church) and seek the salvation of the lost. I want to do more of it.
And we do this in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, out of a growing relationship with Jesus and with patience and wisdom. Yet I pray that we would all consider bringing the Gospel to the nations, to our school community, to our neighborhood street, to our work environment, to our kids and grandkids and to all of our friends and family members as a great delicious satisfying kind of food that energizes us with purpose to live on planet earth for the will of God.
But don’t forget the first step, PRAY (Luke 10:2) as Jesus is sovereign over this mission & we fulfill His mission in close connection to Him, and rejoice that you have been rescued by Jesus too (Luke 10:20). Don’t get so caught up in missions for others that you miss God’s ongoing mission for you!
With love and joy in Christ,
Love Aaron
