How to Be on Mission With God
Jesus said, "I did not come to do my own will, but the will of one who sent me." (Matt 26:42)
A servant always needs to listen to His Master in order to successfully fulfill his identity, role and responsibility. Too many Christians are trying to serve God with their own agenda instead of finding out how they need to be accomplishing God’s mission.
Illustration:A missionary in Africa was once asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was shocking. "Do I like this work?" he said. "No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonable refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse...But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to ’Go,’ and we go. Love constrains us."
Our Daily Bread.
Here are a few helpful guidelines that have proven effective through twenty five years of mission experience in Africa and in the USA.
1. The Lord initiated His will through Abraham, as the Provider, the Almighty and the Multiplier of His kingdom for all those who will receive, believe and act on His promises. (Gen. 12:1-20) Paul taught us that we too can share in that promise when he wrote, "Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, All nations will be blessed through you. so those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham." (Gal. 3:7-9)We need to appropriate the promise that God gives to multiply His seed to all the nations as we believe and act on His promise of the great commission to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.
2. God revealed to John that every tribe, tongue, nation and people would worship together forever in heaven. (Rev. 5:9) We need to be able to find indigneous initiators in each of of the tribes, language groups, people groups, and nations so as to best multiply the kingdom of God through insider multipliers. Many of us can support an indigenous missionaries among the 3000 unreached people groups through credible mission organizations for about $30/month.
Illustration:A one-legged school teacher from Scotland came to J. Hudson Taylor to offer himself for service in China. "With only one leg, why do you think of going as a missionary?" Asked Taylor.
"I do not see those with two legs going," replied George Scott. He was accepted.
Pillar of Fire, January First, 1983.
3. God’s name is to best glorified and His kingdom is best established when more people in the world are reconciled to Himself through saving faith in Jesus Christ. When we follow these three priorities, His glory, His kingdom and His gospel of reconciliation message, then we are most fitting in to the priority purposes of God’s identity and mission.
4. Look for ways that you can commune with God in His word, through prayer and with godly mission minded people who can help you get a greater sense of the pulse of God’s mission ministry that you can plug in to. Many people forget what James teaches us about, "Resist the devil, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hearts you double minded." (James 4:7,8) When we are abiding in Him then we are able to experience more of the mind, power and perspectives of the Lord Almighty and respond to His mission.
5. Communicate more from the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote, "It is God who at work in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13,14) Only when we are able to allow the Lord to work through us are we able to know that we are on God’s mission instead of our own. James writes, "Wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." (James 3;17,18) When you sense that you are not evidencing these qualities of Spirit led wisdom it may be time to reassess, reconfigure and recalibrate how much of what you are doing is on mission with God.
6. Use the gifts, callings, time, talents, energies, abilities, resources, background, languages, connections, friends, ministries, and open doors that the Lord provides for you. He guides us not only with His moral will found in the scripture but He uses His sovereign will to show us the best ways that we can individually and corporately contribute to the cause of Christ for eternity. Do not try comparing yourself with somebody else. As Jesus told Peter, If I want John to remain until I come, what is that to you. You must follow me." (John 21:15-21)
7. Research all the ways that God is at work around you accomplishing HIs mission and join in. God always preserves a remnant of Godly people who are doing HIs will. Do not be shy about asking, praying and knocking on doors until you can find people who you can equally yoke with in cooperating about the mission of God. Expect God to reveal to you what He is doing in your Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the utter most parts of the earth. Do not set your expectations too low.
8. We who know the need must be willing to sow the seed. There are few Christians who are aware that around 3 billion people have yet to hear a clear presentation of the gospel. Few Christians realize that less than 2% of giving in America goes for missions and only 1.3% of that 2% goes to reaching the 3 billion unreached people groups. This disproportionate amount of money should shock more people into giving where the need is greatest. Jesus said, "Open your eyes and look to the fields that are ripe for harvesting." (John 4:34-36)
9. God reveals only as we obey. The more we obey the more He will reveal. We need to respond to the call of God to be on mission with Him in little ways before He will make us faithful over much. (Luke 16:10-12)
10. Respond more to the promptings of God’s Spirit and word to be more actively involved with missions through praying about the needs around the world. I first developed a heart for missions by praying over missionary prayer letters and a map of the world. Eventually, the Lord broke my heart and compelled me to go to Nigeria where I spent nearly twenty years being involved with planting 650 churches all for the glory of God and by His grace and enabling. He works in ways that we cannot see or expect until we respond to the initial promptings of His Spirit and His word in small ways.
11. God’s invitation often leads people to a decision-making point where they will experience a crisis of belief that calls for faith and action. Only when we are willing to be broken and respond in obedience and faith will the Lord reveal more of the way we can fit into His mission for the world. God gives gifts and callings to all of us but only the ones who are consistently obedient are able to ascend to the higher levels of ministry maturity and help multiply His church in greater quantitative and qualitative ways.
12. Be willing to make whatever adjustments, adaption and attitude refinements in order to mature to the highest levels of Christ likeness. (Eph. 4:15) Too many people fail to remain teachable, adaptable and open to being clay in the potter’s hands.
13. The more we experience God’s mission the greater discernment, insight and perception we will get about teaching the mission of God to others. Heb 5:14 says, "But solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil." Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God, but realize that to be a Wm Carey type of individual we need a lot of experience. Be willing to experiment with new mission trips and ministry assignments to find out what is the best fit for you in being on mission with God. Ask the Lord to give you the perseverance, resilience and godly character qualities that will be necessary to run the marathon mission that God has for you!
14. Be careful to not deceive yourself that merely through efficiency, education and ingenuity you can be on mission with God. Many people miss out on being on mission with God because they are not following Jesus Christ and Paul the apostle in the way that they obeyed Kingdom principles and practices. Paul wrote, "Forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press forward for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:14)
15. Envision, inform, involve, equip, enable by the Spirit, empowering others for multiplication, entrusting to faithful men who can teach others also and enable new fellowships to come in to existence among the unreached and yet to be reached peoples of the world. Follow the example of Paul’s church planting apostolic mission as it is a God blessed model for being on mission with God.
Illustration: Walter Gowans, 1983, a founder of SIM. On Dec. 4, 1893, Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham of Toronto, Canada, and Thomas Kent of Buffalo, N.Y., landed at Lagos, Nigeria. Their aim was to establish a witness among the 60 million people of what was then commonly known as the Soudan, the area south of the Sahara between the Niger River and the Nile. Gowans and Kent died in the first few months. Bingham returned to Canada, formed a council, and went back to Africa in 1900. That attempt, too, was unsuccessful. In 1901 Bingham sent out a party that succeeded in establishing the Mission’s first base, at Patigi, 500 miles up the Niger River. When these first SIM pioneers landed in Nigeria, Gowans was 25 years old, Bingham was two weeks away from his 21st birthday, Kent was 23.
Today the SIM ministries have 15,000 churches in 47 countries with nearly 10 million people in church every Sunday morning. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.
Source Unknown.
