On Mission to the World
Memory verse: “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)
When you respond to God’s invitation to an intimate love relationship with Him, He brings you into a special partnership with Himself. God has added you to a local body of believers. Together you are the body of Christ in your community. As the Head of your church, Christ Himself is guiding and working through your congregation to accomplish the will of the Father.
The Spirit who bonds you to other believers in a local church also connects you to all believers around the world. God’s people from every local body of Christ are part of God’s kingdom. Christians are kingdom people, and Christ Himself is the eternal King over His kingdom. He “has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father” (Rev. 1:6). In this relationship with Christ as King, you become involved in His mission to reconcile a lost world to God. To be related to Christ is to be on mission with Him. You cannot be in relationship with Jesus and not be on mission. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).
Jesus now functions as the Head of His body, the local church, to guide it in carrying out the will of the Father. God established each church as a body of Christ so He could continue His redemptive work in the world. When Christ functions as the Head of His church, God will use that body to carry out His will in every part of the earth.
A church is a living organism, a body with Christ as its Head. Each part of that body is related to Christ and to one another. Anytime God guides His people, He can impact a world through that congregation. Jesus gave us a commission to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). As they obey that command, every congregation is a world-missions strategy center. God can impact the world through one church if it adjusts itself to God’s activity. When you adjust your life to God and become a Kingdom-oriented person, He will involve you in His work anywhere in the world He chooses. He is at work all over the world building His kingdom.
I was speaking at a conference in Minneapolis-Saint Paul about participating with God to touch a world. A pastor from an inner-city church said, “That’s how God told me to function as a pastor! We began to look for what God was doing. Someone from Jamaica joined our church and asked, ‘Would you come and preach in our country. We need the Lord so much.’ I took some people with me, and we started three churches. The next month God added to our church someone from another Caribbean nation. We went there and started churches. Now we sponsor mission churches in three Caribbean nations.” Then he smiled and said, “Last Sunday we had a man join our church from Ghana in west Africa. I don’t know what God is up to, but we’re ready to see!”
This congregation discovered they were Kingdom citizens. To experience God and to know and do God’s will is to put your life alongside His activity and to let His Spirit show you why that happened in your church. Adjust your life to Him and let Him work through you to draw a world to Himself.
Isn’t it tragic when we become so self-centered we enter God’s presence and say, “O God, bless me. Bless my family. Bless my church”? Then God says, “I’ve been trying to do that all along but in a completely different way than you anticipated. I want you to deny self. Pick up your cross and follow Me. I will lead you to places where I am working, and I’ll include you in My activity. You will be an instrument in My hand, so I use your life to touch a world. When I do that through you, you will truly experience My blessings.”