Missions

I came across something recently that made me stop and think.

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)

Nothing can be more important than what the Son of God died to achieve. Reaching all the peoples of the world with the saving news of Christ's death and resurrection so that communities of believers can be established through faith in the Redeemer is the greatest work of the Church. 

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church, but it is the greatest work of the Church.

The ultimate goal of the Church is passion for the supremacy of God in the hearts of people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. The glory of God is the goal.

Personally, I tend to be more inwardly focused as opposed to outwardly focused.

But people cannot glorify God and be satisfied in Him if they don't know Him. 

So, evangelizing the unreached peoples of the world is the great work of the Church.

There can be no Christ-exalting anything without the knowledge of the exalted Christ. 

Greatness

Greatness is not recognition. It is not (necessarily) accomplishment.

Greatness has to do with staying power, the ability to endure or last. It has to do with the preservation of the great truths from one generation to the next. It has to do with the closing of the gap between what you say and who you are. It has to do with that integrity that is passed on from one generation to the next. 

It is not faddishness or who is popular or how many Twitter followers you have or anything like that. 

What I am talking about is greatness in its purity. 

Good Karma?

Many people operate on the system of karma.

The term “good karma” is used in everyday speech in the Western world. Philosophies of religion infiltrate our culture without most people even realizing it. People will use phrases and have beliefs from various religions, but many cannot even explain how we came to know them.

Karma is the idea that whatever good you put out there will be returned upon you. So, if you are good, then good things happen to you, and if you are bad, bad things happen to you.

The world does seem to operate on a sowing and reaping system. Even Newton's 3rd law of motion says, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction."

The problem with karma, though, is that we cannot manipulate God. I've known people who love Jesus, live upright, are good human beings, and they die or have the most horrible things in the world happen to them. And I have known wicked people who have lived lavishly off the wealth they acquired through wickedness. 

Tullian Tchividjian writes, “The truth is that when you and I insist on that all-too-comfortable paradigm of cosmic score keeping, we’re no longer talking about Christianity. In fact, what we reveal is that we've adopted (unwittingly) a Westernized form of Hinduism. We are talking, in other words, about karma. If you are a bad person and things are going well for you, it is only a matter of time before karma catches up with you and ‘you get yours.’ If you are good person, the inverse is true: just be patient and your good deeds will come back to you. This is a simplification of the complex Hindu understanding of history as determined by the past lives of others: that we are all stuck in an eternal cycle of suffering perpetuated by reincarnation.”

In religion, you get what you deserve. It is the same with karma. Karma is all about getting what you deserve. Grace is the opposite of karma.

Tchividjian continues, “On the opposite end of our natural tendency to moralize life and suffering stands the counter-intuitive affirmation of Christianity. Christianity affirms that Jesus severed the link between suffering and deserving once for all on Calvary. God put the ledgers away and settled the accounts. The good news of the gospel is NOT that good people get good stuff. It’s not that life is cyclical and that “what comes around goes around.” Rather, it’s that the bad get the best, the worst inherit the wealth, and the slave becomes a son (Rom.5:8).”

As Christians, we believe in Christ, not karma. We believe that Christ rules over our lives, not karma.

But God...

"But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God."

I love that. You say, “But I was hurt. I was abandoned. I was abused. I was devastated. I was neglected. The people who were supposed to care for me didn’t.” Yes, true, but God.

Here are some lyrics to a few songs that I like that talk about 'but God':

"I was content as I watched myself dying in my sin. I was my own end, my own God. God of a world where satisfaction came from temporary sensations, where decisions were based on the latest temptations, where happiness and comfort was my only salvation. I was a cheap imitation. But God..."

"But God, being rich in mercy, placed salvation on your head."

"But God rich in mercy made a way
By grace I have been saved
Through faith I have been raised
Only by the blood of Christ"

 

Genesis 45:5

"But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life."

Praise God in all circumstance?

Yes, all circumstances.

"Yeah, but people do evil."

Yes, they do, and God is bigger than they are.

So I say, "Thank you, Jesus. It’s not the route I wanted, but in retrospect, it’s the one that I am most glad for."

Live life by faith. God is good. God is in charge. God has a plan. God works out all things for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose.

Live Your Life Like Jesus?

I've read a lot of books on how to live life, and most books say to live life like Jesus. Do I believe that? Well, yes and no. Yes, I should live my life like Jesus, but with one exception.

What is one thing that Jesus never did that you and I need to do all the time?

Repent.

Most of the books on discipleship tend to say live like Jesus. And by looking at the life of Jesus, here’s what you’ll never see Jesus do – repent of sin, because he never sinned. You never see Jesus look somebody in the eye and say, “I did evil. I said wrong. I was wicked. I was selfish. I was bad. I took advantage of you. I lied about you. I exploited you. I manipulated you. That was evil. Forgive me.” You’d never see Jesus say that cause he never sinned.

You and I, we sin. John says, “He who says he’s without sin doesn’t know God.” We fail to do good. That’s sin of omission. We do bad. That’s sin of commission. We sin in our words. We sin in our deeds. We sin in our motives. We sin in our heart. We sin in our imagination. We sin in our mind.

We need to repent. "God, it was wrong. I need you to save me from myself and change me. The person that I have offended or people I have offended, I have done wrong. I need you to forgive me."

You repent of sin to become a Christian, to grow as a Christian, and to reveal Christ to others. All of a Christian's life is one of repentance.

"When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." - Martin Luther

Marriage refers to Christ and the church

Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham, said that if two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary. So many times, though, I can't see past the emotions of the moment, and I long for agreement in everything. From the outside looking in, it would probably appear as though the marriage is in trouble. But a marriage built on a foundation by God is suspended from above and is firmly attached. By God's grace, it will not crash down to the ground.

It is the weight of our sin that accelerates us into the "bad times". But every marriage, no matter what, refers to Christ and the church. God designed marriage to be a picture.

“Marriage is more than your love for each other....In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, and office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.”
   
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

"Welcome one another . . . for the glory of God." That is God’s word for your marriage. Thank him for it; thank him for leading you thus far; ask him to establish your marriage, to confirm it, sanctify it, and preserve it. So your marriage will be ‘for the praise of God’s glory.’ Amen.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison