My mind wanders back to this amazing audio I heard during debrief when I had just gotten back from Thailand. I don’t remember who wrote it or anything like that but it talked about intimacy and missions. And I don’t remember all that much of it but I remember it clearly stating this:
“The missions of the church, is missions”.
Our mission is spreading the gospel. Period. That’s it. I can spend however much time I do volunteering here or there, I can open doors for people, and I can go to all the events with this organization or that organization but if I am not doing it with a servants heart, with the intent of making a connection with someone even for a moment so that they might see Christ through me, then I am doing nothing. If I am not telling people about Jesus and about what He did for me on that cross than I haven’t done anything.
I have to ask myself, from time to time, if that is the way I’m living my life. I mean because if I did, wouldn’t I do whatever it takes to spread Christ’s love to the world? I wouldn’t be stricken by fear or worry. I wouldn’t fear rejection. I wouldn’t ignore a cry for help because it “didn’t fit into my schedule”. I wouldn’t overlook intimacy like I so often do. The reality is that there is nothing I can do that is more important. Period.
This past Sunday I got to go to REI outlet and shop for backpacks and tents and start to get a look at some of the gear I am going to need for this next year, AND I got to meet one of the guys who is on my squad for the year. It was an incredible day and just feeling the backpack in my hands and on my back and talking to Chris about it everything just started to feel so real. I came home that day and my mind was just reeling with excitement and so many thoughts. I was talking to someone about how I needed to take pictures of my furniture and belongings so that I could put them up online and start selling my things in preparation. They said that it was so great that I was willing to sacrifice a year for this mission…
Those of you, who know me, know this term sacrifice doesn’t sit well with me especially when in reference to missions.
Missions = sacrificial… well… my response to that statement? It’s a lie. What am I sacrificing? All that extra stuff I don’t need? Please tell me what I’m sacrificing because I just don’t see it. I’m giving up all this stuff that I don’t NEED. So often we get the term necessity so wrongly defined in our minds. The reality is I’m, we’re, always provided for, God promises us that. Missions, at least in my mind, is not sacrificial, missions is life. Being a missionary is something that we’re all called to do. Nobody is special because they are a “missionary”. We’re all missionaries. It’s not a “oh you get converted and then go and do missions” NO. Missions happen every day. Missions are your life. We are constantly on a mission to spread Christ. Whether that be in the business world, the medical field, education system, food service, or whether it be through travel and service. It’s all missions.
So, yes while I am selling my belongings and I am going to travel and spread the Gospel my mission is still the same, to spread Christ. For me, it just happens to be traveling around right now. I have no ties I have a passion to go and I have a desire to follow Christ to every nook and cranny of the world and so that is what I am going to do.
But please don’t applaud me for sacrificing anything. Because I am not. I mean, what is sacrifice really? Look at the cross. God becoming man, coming to this earth in the form of His only son Jesus Christ to be ridiculed, humiliated, and to suffer and die a death that He in no way shape or form deserved so that I, a sinning individual, with no capacity to understand what it means to really unconditionally love like Christ, could live an eternal life with Him. That my friends, is sacrifice.
Revelations talks about Babylon and the heavenly kingdom.
Well… SPOILER ALERT: Babylon FALLS.
Think about America, about our world as Babylon. America will fall, it will go down. The world as we know it WILL fall. Angels will rejoice when Babylon falls. My life has been spent being sold out to this kingdom that is going under. I need to disengage from that. I need to take my place in the kingdom that will reign forever. The kingdom that will never fall. It’s more than just believing in Jesus. It’s about disengaging of the world and entering the kingdom of heaven. It’s about embracing your calling in life: missions. It’s about living with passion, being passionate about Christ and what He did for you. And yeah, I guess it is about a little bit of sacrifice.
So yeah I guess I change my mind, I do plan on sacrificing something; my life, for Christ, because that cross and what He did on that cross is a love that is worth sacrificing my life for.
