Missions

Christians, we have to stop it! 

  We debate and discuss and preach and blog and facebook and all the ways we think people should do, or should not do missions, ministry, church, family, marriage, jobs, raising kids, adoption, sports, and life in general.

Our main job as Christians is to love God and love people and with that as our heart, we will be compelled to go and make disciples.

  The ones that ARE doing this, HOWEVER they are doing it, here or there, to these people or those people, for a week or a lifetime, all over the world or in our yard, we are ALL to just,

cheer one another on like crazy people.

I was laughing to myself thinking of how us Christians today would have responded to Jonah and the testimony of  his mission trip to Nineveh. 

  We would have debated and discussed the effectiveness of being swallowed by a fish and some would say that it was not really cost effective, and that he was not safe or responsible.

   Some would say that Jonah should have just sent money, and started with a smaller fish and worked his way up, and some would say that he should have stayed longer or shorter in the fish and in Ninevah. 

He should have learned the language and the culture before he tried to convert them.  He should have washed off the fish slime before preaching, or maybe he should preach with the fish slime on. 

  And others would have jumped in the ocean hoping to get swallowed by a big fish so they could have the same testimony and ministry as Jonah, thinking that it worked once and so it must be the most effective way to do missions…it must be the “formula” of the day. 

God help us…..we keep looking for the formula…the way to do what God has called us to do…and we keep  forgetting to LOOK to Jesus and just doing what He tells us.

This is what He commanded us to do:

Mark 12:29-31

English Standard Version (ESV)

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

This is what He commissioned us to do:

Matthew 28:18-20

English Standard Version (ESV)

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And this is how:

Mark 12:29-31

English Standard Version (ESV)

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”